thedrifter
11-13-07, 08:41 AM
Active duty: Athabascan joins Marines
By Stefan Milkowski
smilkowski@newsminer.com
Published November 12, 2007
Last Wednesday, Donovan Nickoli of Kaltag became a Marine.
“I know I’ve changed,” he said Friday. “The Marines are a different kind of human being.”
They’re more disciplined, he said.
Pvt. Nickoli, 18, was sitting on a couch in his sister’s Fairbanks apartment wearing his dress blues. He wore light blue slacks and a dark blue coat with a white belt. His marksmanship badge was pinned an eighth of an inch above the center of his left pocket.
“I’m not lazy like I used to be,” he said.
Nickoli graduated from Galena Interior Learning Academy in the spring and went through boot camp this fall in San Diego. A full-blooded Athabascan from a fishing village on the Yukon, he was the only Alaskan in his company of 600.
Learning to fly
Nickoli grew up in Kaltag, a small village 335 miles west of Fairbanks, in a house overlooking the Yukon River. His father worked as a carpenter and his family fished.
His older brother and his father would hunt, but Nickoli never really got into it.
He was close with his mother, and it was she who convinced him to leave Kaltag to attend high school 75 miles upriver in Galena. He lived in a dorm at the learning academy, played some basketball, and learned to fly.
“I liked it,” he said. “I didn’t want to graduate.”
As part of the school’s vocational education programs, Nickoli took flight classes and racked up 25 hours flying time in a Cessna 170. He flew three hours solo.
“There’s no control tower, so I learned to speak on the radio,” he said.
He flew to Fairbanks with his aviation teacher and got some experience flying with a control tower. He said he’s close to getting his pilot’s license and hopes to pick up flying again in the future.
“Donovan’s always been a good kid,” said his cousin, Edward Sweat, who grew up with him in Kaltag.
Honor, courage,
commitment
A recruiter in Galena told Nickoli about the Marines, and he signed up a few months before graduation for four years active duty and four reserve.
“I just made up my mind,” he said. “I didn’t have any plans.”
His father was in the National Guard.
Nickoli took the summer off and started boot camp in mid-August. He was in pretty good physical shape going into it, he said, and the physical part didn’t turn out to be that hard. He learned to swim with a pack and a rifle, and he survived “the crucible” — camping out for days with limited food and sleep.
He learned to shoot well enough to earn an expert marksmanship badge.
It was the mental challenges that surprised him.
“They want to make you a Marine, but y’know, it’s tough,” he said. “You’re a civilian, you’re heinous to the drill instructors.”
A big part of becoming a Marine is building up mental toughness, he added. At boot camp, you sound off when you’re ordered to sound off. You get out of bed when the lights click on in the morning.
Nickoli said his throat was still sore from yelling and a light case of “recruit crud,” the common cold that comes with living in close quarters with crowds of others from around the country.
He made lots of friends, he said, and answered lots of questions about life in Alaska — about igloos, or if he was an Eskimo.
He graduated Nov. 7 and flew that night to Fairbanks, where his sister and parents live.
Nickoli’s sister, Bernice Moore, said her brother has certainly changed — he’s very “gentleman-like” now.
“I am very, very happy for him,” she said. “He has made his own decisions.”
In Fairbanks, 2,500 miles from boot camp, Nickoli took care to follow Marine Corps dress protocol. He didn’t wear his “cover,” or hat, inside.
“Honor, courage, commitment,” he said, naming the Corps’ core values.
In December, Nickoli will head to Camp Pendleton outside San Diego for Marine combat skills training. After that, he’ll study to become a motor transport mechanic so he can work on Humvees and other military vehicles.
In the future, he could end up in North Carolina, Okinawa, or Europe.
Or he could get deployed to Iraq.
“I would be up for it,” he said. “I would have the training to survive.”
Contact staff writer Stefan Milkowski at 459-7577.
Ellie
By Stefan Milkowski
smilkowski@newsminer.com
Published November 12, 2007
Last Wednesday, Donovan Nickoli of Kaltag became a Marine.
“I know I’ve changed,” he said Friday. “The Marines are a different kind of human being.”
They’re more disciplined, he said.
Pvt. Nickoli, 18, was sitting on a couch in his sister’s Fairbanks apartment wearing his dress blues. He wore light blue slacks and a dark blue coat with a white belt. His marksmanship badge was pinned an eighth of an inch above the center of his left pocket.
“I’m not lazy like I used to be,” he said.
Nickoli graduated from Galena Interior Learning Academy in the spring and went through boot camp this fall in San Diego. A full-blooded Athabascan from a fishing village on the Yukon, he was the only Alaskan in his company of 600.
Learning to fly
Nickoli grew up in Kaltag, a small village 335 miles west of Fairbanks, in a house overlooking the Yukon River. His father worked as a carpenter and his family fished.
His older brother and his father would hunt, but Nickoli never really got into it.
He was close with his mother, and it was she who convinced him to leave Kaltag to attend high school 75 miles upriver in Galena. He lived in a dorm at the learning academy, played some basketball, and learned to fly.
“I liked it,” he said. “I didn’t want to graduate.”
As part of the school’s vocational education programs, Nickoli took flight classes and racked up 25 hours flying time in a Cessna 170. He flew three hours solo.
“There’s no control tower, so I learned to speak on the radio,” he said.
He flew to Fairbanks with his aviation teacher and got some experience flying with a control tower. He said he’s close to getting his pilot’s license and hopes to pick up flying again in the future.
“Donovan’s always been a good kid,” said his cousin, Edward Sweat, who grew up with him in Kaltag.
Honor, courage,
commitment
A recruiter in Galena told Nickoli about the Marines, and he signed up a few months before graduation for four years active duty and four reserve.
“I just made up my mind,” he said. “I didn’t have any plans.”
His father was in the National Guard.
Nickoli took the summer off and started boot camp in mid-August. He was in pretty good physical shape going into it, he said, and the physical part didn’t turn out to be that hard. He learned to swim with a pack and a rifle, and he survived “the crucible” — camping out for days with limited food and sleep.
He learned to shoot well enough to earn an expert marksmanship badge.
It was the mental challenges that surprised him.
“They want to make you a Marine, but y’know, it’s tough,” he said. “You’re a civilian, you’re heinous to the drill instructors.”
A big part of becoming a Marine is building up mental toughness, he added. At boot camp, you sound off when you’re ordered to sound off. You get out of bed when the lights click on in the morning.
Nickoli said his throat was still sore from yelling and a light case of “recruit crud,” the common cold that comes with living in close quarters with crowds of others from around the country.
He made lots of friends, he said, and answered lots of questions about life in Alaska — about igloos, or if he was an Eskimo.
He graduated Nov. 7 and flew that night to Fairbanks, where his sister and parents live.
Nickoli’s sister, Bernice Moore, said her brother has certainly changed — he’s very “gentleman-like” now.
“I am very, very happy for him,” she said. “He has made his own decisions.”
In Fairbanks, 2,500 miles from boot camp, Nickoli took care to follow Marine Corps dress protocol. He didn’t wear his “cover,” or hat, inside.
“Honor, courage, commitment,” he said, naming the Corps’ core values.
In December, Nickoli will head to Camp Pendleton outside San Diego for Marine combat skills training. After that, he’ll study to become a motor transport mechanic so he can work on Humvees and other military vehicles.
In the future, he could end up in North Carolina, Okinawa, or Europe.
Or he could get deployed to Iraq.
“I would be up for it,” he said. “I would have the training to survive.”
Contact staff writer Stefan Milkowski at 459-7577.
Ellie