Everyone has a life before the Marine Corps. Some are filled with high school hoopla, youthful accomplishments, and, finally, ascendency into the world's finest fighting force. Others come from less auspicious circumstances, entering the common crucible that transforms the ordinary person into one of the few.

After being asked to leave high school and not return, in my senior year, I took a couple of jobs in my hometown and made zero plans for the future. My parents paid for me to complete my high school education at an adult education facility from which I was awarded a diploma. After that I figured I could hang loose and see what turned up. I was mistaken.

My parents had both retired from their separate jobs at Buick and the local school district. They had developed some property they owned in Florida and left Michigan for good. They told me I could live with my brother for a while, but suggested I get my act together and begin a life as an adult.

Thinking it was the right thing to do I enrolled at the local community college and began classes while working two dead-end jobs. One day I corrected the boss's misbehaving child by kicking him in the butt. I was fired. The same week, I got the security truck stuck in the mud at the bottom of a hill while driving the perimeter during a rain storm. The boss thought that was stupid and fired me. College wasn't working out any better, as my attendance, or lack of, contributed to my essentially failing the semester.

I addressed these problems by drinking at the biergarten (bar) which was conveniently located next door (crawling distance as my father used to say). The law had been changed so that eighteen-year-olds were now the age of majority and could do any evil thing an adult could. One night, as my cousin and I were toasting our inability to get dates, since we had no real money or a place to take them to enjoy their enlightened promiscuous tendencies -- in walked a Marine on leave.

My uncle had been a Marine, and still was, and had been trying to get me to enlist ever since I turned seventeen. He was a recruiter at the time and everyone with a pulse was a potential applicant. At that time I was going to graduate (supposedly), was physically fit (in some ways), and had not been in trouble with the law (yet). He was pretty insistent, but was working in a recruiting station in Ohio, so he couldn't keep the pressure on for more than a few hours when he visited. He was always impressive though, and his physicality and poise were outstanding. If the Marines hadn't seemed like such an out-of-reach idea and mismatch for me, I may have been enticed to join.

Now though, in this tavern, this jarhead was disheveled and droopy, while displaying few remarkable attributes typically assigned to the Few and the Proud. We looked at each other, my cousin and I, and decided that we could do at least as good as this guy. I enlisted the next day (my cousin had apparently rethought his position and declined).

I joined the Marines in 1974. The war in Vietnam was winding down; no one was being shipped there from the Corps anymore. Being in a Field Artillery Group (FAG), we were somewhat of a weird lash-up to exist stateside. The makeshift battalion belonged to the Force Service Support Group (FSSG) which was a combat assemblage of everything needed to go to war. We were an island for broken toys also, as returning veterans of the war were assigned to our unit to await final release from active service. Many were hard to get along with, as the seemingly meaningless drill of barracks life was hard to compare to a war zone. I was unaware at the time that any of this was unusual.

The whole unit consisted of a 105 battery, 155 self-propelled battery, 155 tows, 175's, and 8 inch guns. There was also a tank company, amphibious vehicles company, and the force recon unit. We were designed to ship as a prepackaged death battalion with a central command. We would be super-useful in combat, but an oddball back on the base.

Meteorology was my military occupational specialty (MOS). We sent up sounding balloons to gather atmospheric data used in eliminating air density, pressure, temperature, and wind direction factors so that artillery could achieve a first-round effect on target. It was a lot of plotting and figuring that we delivered every four hours to firing units. Since the major conflict was basically over though, we essentially just trained to train with no real expectations of going anywhere. If the FAG unit were again deployed, it would be for World War III. So, we just blew up real estate in North Carolina and, on occasion, Puerto Rico.

Around 1983, after almost ten years of mind-numbing sameness, interspersed with a stint as a recruiter in Detroit, a year and a half as a civilian looking for work in Fairbanks, Alaska (that's another story) and Reganomics-Recession Michigan, a change of wives (yet another story), and a return to the loving embrace of the United State Marine Corps, I was assigned to Headquarters Battery, 10th Marines, in the 2d Marine Division. My wife feared that I would be deployed a lot, but I assured her, that as a regimental meteorologist, there would need to be a war for my section to embark. I was mistaken.

Charlie Battery, 1st Battalion, 10th Marines had been assigned to NATO forces in Beirut, Lebanon to be a Peacekeeping tool while negotiations went on to get the Israeli occupational forces to leave the country. Some brainiac in command thought the Beirut airport's meteorological equipment could be used to supply the artillery with data to perfect their ability to hit targets accurately. What was lacking was someone to both operate the device and convert data to military usability. That required someone from the regimental level, which turned out to be me, the assistant meteorological chief, and another private.

To make a long story short, we got there, the airport's equipment had been blown to smithereens, and we were forced to run pilot balloon missions (just a balloon and a scope) for four months. During that time the artillery fired only two or three illumination rounds until they fired high explosives (HE) on an invading Syrian battalion. Then, they never used the data, because the battery operations chief didn't know how to enter data from a visual met message into his computer. In fact, he'd never used any data we had sent him.

The fact that our battery fired on the advancing Syrians took us off the Peacekeeper board and placed us in as a target for terrorists. Our Battalion Landing Team (BLT) Headquarters was car-bombed within the week, leveling the five-story building they were housed in and costing over three hundred and seventy Marines and Sailors their lives. We were replaced and left the country a month later.

After a couple years back at 10th Marines I asked to be sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma as a meteorological instructor. Ft. Sill is the mecca of the field artillery and trains soldiers from all over the world. I got the transfer and stayed there until 1990.

Since 1989, the U.S. had been sending all kinds of equipment and personnel over to Saudi Arabia in anticipation of defending it from the Iraqi forces that had invaded Kuwait. I told my wife, who craved security and some degree of stay-put-ness, that since I was at the school and had the option to extend another three years, that I would be the last person to go anywhere. I wasn't anticipating orders, but my friends in D.C. thought it was time for me to rotate to Okinawa, Japan as an artillery operations chief. Wife...displeased.

I got to Okinawa in September. My wife worried that I would be involved in this thing called Desert Shield. I actually wanted to go, because we train for war, and here was one ready to go. I assured her, however, that I was with the 3rd Marine Division now, and that this deal in Kuwait was being handled by 2nd Marine Division out of North Carolina. I would be the last to go. I was mistaken.

10th Marines needed a fifth battalion, so they selected a battery from Hawaii, one from California, one from North Carolina, a reserve battery from Texas, and one battery from Okinawa. Guess who?

I was no longer a meteorologist, but a fire direction control (FDC) operations chief. I knew almost nothing about being an artillery operations chief, so going off to combat made learning that job an overnight necessity.

Desert Storm, as the war with Iraq was called, was essentially over after three days. Without radar, communications, or an actual chain of command, the Iraqis were lost as Tobey's ghost for the duration. We did blow up a lot of machinery and people, but we mostly gave surrendering Iraqi soldiers MREs (Meals, Ready-to- Eat) and directions to the rear lines. It took months to get a surrender signed, but we eventually left and returned to Okinawa. While 2d Marine Division received a heroes' welcome in the states, we returned to Japan where, frankly, we faced disappointed troops who had to watch the war on television, a populace who already disliked Americans, and an extended wait to rotate back to the United States.

Once I was back, I was assigned to Sierra Battery as the Ops Chief. They had just returned from a six month 'float', and were not scheduled to redeploy for three years. I told my wife that this all meant that our unit would be the last to go unless we went to war again. I was mistaken.

The United Nations needed an artillery unit to both train Saudi Arabian forces in country and be a force-in-readiness off the coast of Somalia in case intervention was called for. Since the battery still had their Strategic Operations Capable (SOC) status from float, we were selected. The SOC training went fast and we launched for the Gulf.

We did end up entering Somalia, but not as an artillery unit. We packed as a rifle company (infantry) and ended up chasing warlords all over Mogadishu and Kitsmayu. Before we left, I took a fire team to a spot just inside Ethiopia and surveyed in coordinates for an airstrip to be used for future humanitarian cargo ship landings. We then got back on board the ship and scooted home.

After returning I was informed that I was due for another move. I had a choice of a mortar platoon, an Instructor-Inspection station (I and I) with a reserve unit, or take my chances with an open billet in 10th Marines. I found a non-artillery slot as the Communications Security Officer (ComSec) which would keep me in HQ and make my wife and children happy. I told my wife that I might very well spend the duration of my career here. I was mistaken.

The UN had set up a U.S. Support Group in Haiti and needed a Gunnery Sergeant to act as the Sergeant Major. Since I wasn't an active Ops Chief, I was selected to fill that role and was shipped to Port-o-Prince. I remained there for six months, basically keeping security, intelligence, operations, and logistics under control within this multi-service configuration. I was overtly intimidating, making the control of Air Force, Army, and Navy personnel a bit easier. I had to jack up an Air Force Staff Sergeant and an Army lieutenant in the first week, but never needed to raise my voice afterwards. I almost hated to leave, but I did miss my wife and kids.

Upon returning to 10th Marines I was given yet another choice of assignments. Mortar platoon or I and I duty in Waterloo, Iowa. The mortar platoon assignment was the clincher for promotion to Master Sergeant and assignment as a battalion operations chief after returning to the artillery. It was the usual path taken for advancement as an 0848 (oh 8 4 8, artillery ops chief) to a battalion ops chief. I chose the Iowa post for no other reason other than I would be doing the job I knew, and not having to step backwards to becoming a glorified platoon sergeant again. Iowa was also a stone's throw away from Michigan, my retirement destination. I was eligible to retire in a year anyway, and if that decision was made, Iowa would be a convenient place from which to research our eventual residence in Michigan.

I had passed the retirement milestone and could either retire or stay and go on back to the fleet for another ten years. However, in the next couple of months, I ran my shoulder into the ground chasing a fly ball in center field at a ball game with a local civilian baseball club. The doctor said it was badly torn, and would probably never be as good as it had been again. Then, shortly after that, while we were running as a platoon up and down the gullies around our reserve station, my knee blew out. The meniscus was torn. When the hospital scoped it, the doctor discovered advanced arthritis in the joints. He recommended a knee replacement, although he knew the military wouldn't approve it at my still youthful age of forty-three. Besides which, the Marines couldn't use a man with a fake knee unless he were irreplaceable. So, the die was cast for my retirement.

The Veterans' Administration (VA) awarded me a 20% disability and that paid for my college education. I became a secondary English and History teacher and got a job a couple months after graduation. Teaching high school is a new challenge that calls for tact, discipline, and the ability to be semper flexible. My twenty-two years as a devil dog have paid me back again and again.