It’s almost ten at night here, but I am working through some homework. One of my upcoming objectives is to write a paper on female recruiting for our nation’s military after 9/11. Tonight, I decided to scout around the Marines website and to my shock and pure joy, I found out one of the recruits from my platoon is now a Marine officer.

I highly doubt she would remember me. I was much more timid back then than I am now, but that’s something we can talk about another time. I wouldn’t say I socialized much with many of the women in my platoon; you run through a lot of skill sets during training and my downtime was spent mostly writing letters to family and friends back home. I would also clean my rifle, but there were girls that were more dedicated than I was at their training. They would practice drill and knowledge in their free time and their efforts paid off immensely. Back then, I was not as diligent in my studies as I am now. I was more captivated by the thought of just finishing boot camp. However, it was always interesting to watch how other recruits interacted with each other. There were a couple who just seemed to be a perfect fit for the Marine Corps.

Please note that in this photo from the Marine Corps Facebook page, she is wearing a different cover [hat]. I had heard about changes to authorize the formerly male cover and dress blues jacket for women and it’s interesting to see that changes are taking place during my lifetime. I’ve always thought the male version of the cover and jacket looked much better than our “flight attendant” looking uniform items. I found the MARADMIN (Marine Administrative Message) about the cover change, if anyone wants to check it out.

Please check out her story; it’s so exciting to know she made the transition from enlisted to officer. I hope this career path is something she enjoys for many years to come and many others can be inspired by her chosen profession.