I remember it as if it was yesterday, funny thing is it was almost a year ago today. It was my last drill weekend, the last time I'd wear the uniform, my last chance to lead Marines…
A lot had lead up to this point in my life. I had been a non contract, non obligated, Marine Corps reservist for exactly a year. It was April of 2012, and I had left active duty in December of 2008 to pursue life as a private security civilian contractor. A lot had happened in those short 4 years. I had worked as a private security contractor for roughly 6 months spending almost 4 of those months in southern Iraq. After I was fired for an alcohol related incident I found myself in Boise, Idaho where I committed my life to Christ on new years night as the clock struck midnight on January 1st 2010. That night I decided to give God a year of my life and see if He could do any better than I had been doing. Be careful praying prayers like that ha ha 2010 was a wild year. I found myself trying out for Boise States football team but didn't make the team. Through my training to play football　I spent so much time at the gym that I became a certified personal trainer and speed coach and wound up working at Golds Gym in Boise, Idaho. I also started a 9 month internship/school of ministry at the church I was attended and continued being a full time student at Boise State.
By February of 2011 I had enough. I had the itch to get back in the fight and started pursuing security contract work although I hadn't finished my internship at my church. Without the blessings of my pastors I sought out to scratch my itch and received a tentative offer of employment for $145,000 a year. Believing God had opened a door for me I stepped into it only to see it slammed shut in my face 2 days before I left for training. I was black listed by the Department of State from the incident 2 years earlier and they wouldn't let me go back to work for them. I had given away my truck to a friend and given away most of my stuff. Crawling back to my pastors and the other interns I apologized, humbly asked for my truck back and decided to finish the last 8 weeks of the internship. Before the 8 weeks was up I had extended my reserve time in the Marine Corps and found a job on a Marine Corps base as a civilian contractor for a base in California. The night I graduated my internship I drove over 8 hours to my new life, my reserve career, and a new job near Reno, Nevada.　
Now a year later my life had taken another shift, a completely new direction and I was once again leaving the Corps that I so desperately hated yet so passionately loved. Becoming a United States Marine Corps scout sniper had been my childhood dream. And God gave me the opportunity to live it with 3 combat deployments to Iraq, as well as another year in the reserves training Marine snipers and Marines seeking to become scout snipers. Leaving has always been easy for me, but this time it was painful….
Although I was leaving for what I thought was good reason, my heart still hurt as I walked away from the Corps yet again. I had met and fallen in love with a girl from Dalton, Georgia. I sought out to pursue the relationship with here, and I knew the only way it'd work is if I moved from Nevada to Georgia to seriously date her. The Marine Corps wanted me to re-enlist as a active reservist which wasn't going to happen because it eliminated my option, plus I always decided if I settled down to start a family I'd get out of the Marine Corps. This was about as close as I'd ever come to settling down, so I pursued it.　
That last weekend I was a wreck… The platoon was finally a platoon of snipers. Prior to this drill the old sniper platoon was scattered across the country and world on deployment while I was rebuilding the platoon and adding Marines to the roster through vigorous indoctrinations and screenings. This was the first weekend that the entire sniper platoon would be together in over a year, and it was my last weekend at the helm. As the Chief Scout sniper it was my responsibility to create the training schedule for each months drill, and carry out that plan and train Marines. This weekend would put all my hard work into motion as Marines who passed the indic received their first taste of sniper training while the Marines that just got back from deployment would get an intense refresher. It was just like my old active duty sniper days, hard physical training in the mud with relentless activities, tests, and individual skills and team skills put to the test. It was beautiful, well what we'd consider beautiful, others might describe it as a weekend resembling hell on earth. To a Marine the situation was normal, "today brings me pain and the promise of more pain", it was just another day of training.
Each day that passed was one day closer to my last, and one day closer to what I thought would be a future marriage and the start of my life as a family man. The weekend was so hard on me because I started to fall in love with Marines all over again. The Marines from the old platoon were just like Marines are. Quick and easy to bond with, rough on the edges, sarcastic, humorous, and ready to train. One Marine in particular quickly became a good friend of mine, Jason. Jason would be taking over my job as the Chief Scout sniper and like myself he was a former active duty Marine having served as an active duty recon Marine nearly 8 years prior. Jason also shared with me in the fact that he too was a christian and is the associate pastor of a church in Mt. Shasta, California. We quickly bonded, sharing laughs and sweat as we trained the Marines according to the schedule I had created for the drill. Jason and I would later share tears, tears I didn't realize would come.
Because I had to turn in all my gear I didn't have a sleeping system that weekend. Although the sniper platoon was at the drill center we were required by the Captain to sleep outside. Not a problem, however it was April in Reno, and it was cold. After roughing it for 3 nights and freezing each night, on the last night Gunny and the rest of the leadership in the platoon decided that for my last night I should stay indoors and get a good nights rest. As I was laying on the floor regretting the fact that I was comfy on the hard tile floor while the rest of the Marines were out freezing, I couldn't help but sob. I don't really know or understand the point of it, but my heart hurt, especially because here it was, an end of an era and rather than being with Marines on my last night as one, I was indoors, and comfortable. As I was texting Jason I received a text from him. The text was actually a video, without giving the details of the video it was the newer Marines in the platoon breaking in their ghillie suits from training earlier that afternoon. I lost it. I wasn't there during that portion of training that day because I was busy with Gunny and the Captain checking out of the unit, however in that moment I was back in the midst of it all, back in my ghillie, crawling through the mud as a new PIG. A PIG is a Professionally Instructed Gunman that is what we call scouts in the platoon that are not yet school trained sniper. After graduating sniper school you become a HOG, a Hunter Of Gunman. My last night as a HOG I laid there on that tile floor and thanked God for all the years and experiences He had blessed me with. To be continued….
Stay tuned for Part 2. If you haven't done so already please subscribe by entering your email address on the left side of this blog and when I post a new blog it'll send you a email with the new blog. Thanks for reading, love ya'll, be blessed. 　
