Joining the Marine Corps

A few days before my birthday I was about to head out to a job interview and my friend, Randy, from high school calls me up. He had just gotten back from Marine Corps boot camp and I thought he was just calling to catch up. He starts talking and I’m acknowledging that I hear what he’s saying and all of a sudden he says, “really, let me get the recruiter on the line.” I’m like, “Randy, Randy, wait” but on comes the recruiter and asked me if I had ever thought of joining the military. I told him I’d never really thought about it but I had thought that if I was ever to join it would be the Marine Corps since they were the best.

He invited me down and I said I’d come after my interview. I believe it was a Thursday night and I talked with the recruiter and did a quick physical test and was scheduled to do the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test on Tuesday the next week. 

My grandparents came into town for the weekend to celebrate my birthday. I assume my uncle, who’s a year younger than me, also came. Over the weekend I asked my family and girlfriend what they thought about me joining the Marine Corps. Not one of them had a negative thing to say about it. Also, none of them had any experience with the military either. I was the first one in my family to join.

So, the next week, I took the ASVAB and as we’re leaving he says I’ll pick you up at 5am to go to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station). I said, “ok.” What I didn’t realize is that after the medical examination I would be sworn into the Marine Corps and there would be no turning back. I did realize it before I pledge but the process of joining the Marine Corps was foreign to me and happened so quickly that I was thrown off-guard. Nobody realized it was birthday until the very end right before the swearing in ceremony. 

For the next couple months I kept going to school at IBC, working at my new job, and going down to the recruiting station once a week to do PT (physical training) that was to get us prepared for boot camp. Around the beginning of May I stopped going to IBC, changed my date for boot camp to be for July instead of June, and moved into an apartment with a friend for a few weeks. 

It was a start to a whole new life for which I was not prepared but it’s been an interesting journey.

IBC – the college years, not the root beer

The Fall of 1985 saw me enrolled at International Baptist College (IBC). I was going for a bachelor’s degree in Bible/Pastoral Studies. I had always grown up being a “preacher boy” and I always wanted to be an evangelist like Ron Comfort and others like him that came through our church. My whole life seemed to be focused in that direction and that’s always what I thought I was going to be. I still feel kind of guilty that I’m not in a pastoral ministry of some sort.

I continued my job at Piccadilly Restaurant across the street at night. I started dating a college freshman and we were a couple for the next 2 ½ years. The first year at IBC went by without much fanfare. When my freshman year was over I headed to Ironwood Camp for the summer to work in the kitchen. I came back to IBC for my Sophomore year. The Winter of ’87 is when my life got real interesting.

The first thing was that I joined the Marine Corps and I was sworn in on my 20^th birthday. I made arrangements to go to boot camp at the end of the school year. The second thing was I helped open up a new restaurant called The Top of the Rock, which is at the resort on the Broadway curve of the I-10 in Phoenix. They were still building it when I started. The third thing is that I never finished my Sophomore year and although originally I had planned on coming back for my Junior year after boot camp, plans changed and I didn’t come back to IBC for almost ten years. 

The year 1987 changed the whole direction and dynamics of my life. I dropped out of college, joined the Marine Corps, and although it was not my intention, started walking away God, and just kind of did my own thing for the next few years.