Originally Posted by
CollinsHaulin
USMC 09/23/02-09/22/06 First contact from the recruiter was about a month before 9/11. I was just starting my senior year of high school, I didn't actually sign up until Feb 02 and went to boot camp 3 months after graduation.
Boot/Marine combat training in San Diego, Ca and Camp Pendleton, CA until Feb 03. Then it was onto my job school (MOS 0651 Data Network Specialist, basically computer geek) at Twenty Nine Palms, CA from Feb-May 03.
June 03-Feb 04 Camp LeJeune MCB, Camp LeJeune, NC.
Feb 04-Sep 04 Deployed to Camp Fallujah Iraq (the bad guy hotbed of the time) for Operation Iraqi Freedom 3-1 (the one is for first shift out of two)
I spent my deployment on the base working on help desks and setting up networks, switches, routers, etc, running cat 5 and helping Officers who "couldn't print" lol. The shifts were 12 on 12 off so basically 13 hour days all day everyday (actually got one day off the whole deployment) taking incoming RPG and Mortar rounds almost daily (duck and run to the nearest bunker) but never had to fire my M16 that we carried everywhere (along with 180 rounds of 5.56 mm ammo). Temps in the summer time reached up to 140 degrees which was fun but most of the buildings had
A/C thankfully so we weren't out in the heat all day just sometimes. Spent the first and last 2 weeks of the deployment staging in Kuwait so it was only 6 1/2 actual months of work.
Sept 04-Sept 06 Camp LeJeune, NC.
Thank you to everybody else who served/is serving.
Sounds kinda similar to my time, computer geek stationed in 29 Palms though from 99 - 03, went to school there, then grabbed my bags and went down the hill to 3rd LAR for the rest of my time. Spent time in Kuwait and Iraq when it first started, was with them when we got the go signal to head into Iraq and start the whole invasion. Didn't get to do any computer stuff once we crossed, ended up becoming more of a grunt than anything, but I do have to say it was a hell of a lot better than making printers work, main reason I no longer make printers work, though still like computers...
A/C.... oh how I loathe you... bet you had ice water too... :-)
3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I was there for the Operation Iraqi Freedom section of this article...
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