thedrifter
03-14-03, 06:35 AM
Young Marines Step Up
Gordon Dillow
Freedom News Service
CAMP BULLRUSH, Kuwait – Given their responsibilities and the lethality of the weapons they use, the Marines of Camp Pendleton’s 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit seem almost impossibly young.
Cpl. Jeffrey Duarte of Anaheim, a gunner on a Humvee-mounted TOW missile system, is 20. Lance Cpl. Garret Amerine of Laguna Niguel, who carries an M-240 machine gun, is 22. Lance Cpl. Allen Dangerfield of Lancaster, who drives a 5-ton truck for a 155 mm howitzer battery, is just 19.
And so on. Lance Cpl. Alejandro Casarez of Alton, Texas, is 19; Pfc Andrew Furman of Santa Clarita is 20; Lance Cpl. Eric Sheppler of San Bernardino is 19. Even a veteran Marine like Sgt. Randon Stevenson, an artillery battery radio chief with six years in the Corps, is just 24.
Obviously, being a Marine in the 15th MEU is a young man’s game. About one-quarter of the
U.S. Marines who are sitting here in the Kuwaiti desert, waiting to go to war, aren’t old enough to legally buy a beer back in the United States.
According to Department of Defense statistics, out of a total active-duty force of about 170,000 Marines, more than 40,000 are under age 21 – and the percentage of relative youngsters is estimated to be even higher in ground combat units like the 15th MEU. In the Marine Corps as a whole, more than half of the men and women in the ranks haven’t yet seen their 25th birthdays.
The 19- to 22-year-olds comprise the largest demographic bulge.
Only a few hundred 17-year- olds are in the Corps, and there is a surprisingly low number of 18- year-olds – only about 6,000. Most young Marines seem to have spent a year or so after high school just hanging around or working in low-end jobs before giving the Marine Corps a try. Despite the numbers, the young Marines don’t think of themselves as being particularly youthful. If you mention their tender years to them, they seem a little puzzled; even the youngest among them see themselves not as kids or teenagers, but as grown men, doing grown men’s work. It falls to grizzled old veterans like Staff Sgt. Robert Knoll to put their youth into perspective.
“We’re actually getting Marines now who were born in the 1980s,” Knoll, who has almost a dozen years in the Corps under his belt, says with a tone of disbelief. “We knew it was going to happen, but still.”
Knoll, by the way, is 30; he was born in 1972.
And it’s not just the lower enlisted ranks of Marines in the 15th MEU who seem young relative to the responsibilities they bear. Midlevel and senior officers hardly qualify as graybeards, either.
Capt. Marta Moellendick of Park- ersburg, W.Va., is the 15th MEU’s adjutant, a kind of chief administrative officer.
One of only a half-dozen female Marines at Camp Bullrush, she is just 29 – although not for long.
“I’m going to turn 30 out here!” she laments as she brushes her teeth outside the small dome tent she calls home.
Her Big Three-O birthday comes later this month.
Capt. Jay Delarosa also claims to be feeling his years.
“I’m getting up there – I’m 32,” says the captain, who after enlisting at age 17 already has 15 years in the Marines – eight as an enlisted man and seven as an officer.
And even the Old Man himself – 15th MEU commander Col. Thomas Waldhauser – isn’t really an old man. Even with almost 27 years in the Corps, he’s still on the south side of 50, at least until his birthday in December.
Still, Col. Waldhauser, like most senior officers and NCOs, is part of a dwindling age cohort.
Because the Marines have an “up or out” policy – if you’re passed over for promotion you’ll be forced to retire or not be allowed to re-enlist – the older a Marine gets the less likely he’ll stay in the Corps. Out of all 170,000 Marines in the Corps, only about 9,000 – or just over 5 percent – are 40 or over, and only about 500 are 50 or older.
Sempers,
Roger
Gordon Dillow
Freedom News Service
CAMP BULLRUSH, Kuwait – Given their responsibilities and the lethality of the weapons they use, the Marines of Camp Pendleton’s 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit seem almost impossibly young.
Cpl. Jeffrey Duarte of Anaheim, a gunner on a Humvee-mounted TOW missile system, is 20. Lance Cpl. Garret Amerine of Laguna Niguel, who carries an M-240 machine gun, is 22. Lance Cpl. Allen Dangerfield of Lancaster, who drives a 5-ton truck for a 155 mm howitzer battery, is just 19.
And so on. Lance Cpl. Alejandro Casarez of Alton, Texas, is 19; Pfc Andrew Furman of Santa Clarita is 20; Lance Cpl. Eric Sheppler of San Bernardino is 19. Even a veteran Marine like Sgt. Randon Stevenson, an artillery battery radio chief with six years in the Corps, is just 24.
Obviously, being a Marine in the 15th MEU is a young man’s game. About one-quarter of the
U.S. Marines who are sitting here in the Kuwaiti desert, waiting to go to war, aren’t old enough to legally buy a beer back in the United States.
According to Department of Defense statistics, out of a total active-duty force of about 170,000 Marines, more than 40,000 are under age 21 – and the percentage of relative youngsters is estimated to be even higher in ground combat units like the 15th MEU. In the Marine Corps as a whole, more than half of the men and women in the ranks haven’t yet seen their 25th birthdays.
The 19- to 22-year-olds comprise the largest demographic bulge.
Only a few hundred 17-year- olds are in the Corps, and there is a surprisingly low number of 18- year-olds – only about 6,000. Most young Marines seem to have spent a year or so after high school just hanging around or working in low-end jobs before giving the Marine Corps a try. Despite the numbers, the young Marines don’t think of themselves as being particularly youthful. If you mention their tender years to them, they seem a little puzzled; even the youngest among them see themselves not as kids or teenagers, but as grown men, doing grown men’s work. It falls to grizzled old veterans like Staff Sgt. Robert Knoll to put their youth into perspective.
“We’re actually getting Marines now who were born in the 1980s,” Knoll, who has almost a dozen years in the Corps under his belt, says with a tone of disbelief. “We knew it was going to happen, but still.”
Knoll, by the way, is 30; he was born in 1972.
And it’s not just the lower enlisted ranks of Marines in the 15th MEU who seem young relative to the responsibilities they bear. Midlevel and senior officers hardly qualify as graybeards, either.
Capt. Marta Moellendick of Park- ersburg, W.Va., is the 15th MEU’s adjutant, a kind of chief administrative officer.
One of only a half-dozen female Marines at Camp Bullrush, she is just 29 – although not for long.
“I’m going to turn 30 out here!” she laments as she brushes her teeth outside the small dome tent she calls home.
Her Big Three-O birthday comes later this month.
Capt. Jay Delarosa also claims to be feeling his years.
“I’m getting up there – I’m 32,” says the captain, who after enlisting at age 17 already has 15 years in the Marines – eight as an enlisted man and seven as an officer.
And even the Old Man himself – 15th MEU commander Col. Thomas Waldhauser – isn’t really an old man. Even with almost 27 years in the Corps, he’s still on the south side of 50, at least until his birthday in December.
Still, Col. Waldhauser, like most senior officers and NCOs, is part of a dwindling age cohort.
Because the Marines have an “up or out” policy – if you’re passed over for promotion you’ll be forced to retire or not be allowed to re-enlist – the older a Marine gets the less likely he’ll stay in the Corps. Out of all 170,000 Marines in the Corps, only about 9,000 – or just over 5 percent – are 40 or over, and only about 500 are 50 or older.
Sempers,
Roger