Turning Point: Marine Corps Boot Camp

 

Fred Hutchison is a veteran from Grants Pass, Oregon. He  attends the University of Oregon. He is a normal 31-year-old Oregonian male that loves the outdoors. He was also a United States Marine for 12 years and was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan during his service. One of Hutchison’s billets was a Marine Corps recruiter in Madison, Wisconsin. “The good experiences out weighed the bad experiences at least 10 to 1,” said Hutchison. With only eight more years left to retire he chose to get out of the Marines. He says, “It was not so much I wanted to get out after twelve years I never intended to make it a career to begin with.” You would think that two deployments would have profound impact on a person. But Hutchison says it was boot camp that had the biggest effect on his life.

He came out of high school without solid a choice on what branch of the military to join.He talked to every recruiter besides the Air Force only because they had no recruiter in Grants Pass. After talking to all the recruiters the Marines were the best fit for him. Hutchison went to Marine Corps boot camp in 1999 at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, California. Hutchison says, “Marine Corps boot camp is probably one of the toughest things you can do. Physically boot camp is hard for some people and easy for some people but mentally it’s hard for just about everybody. If a Marine tells you boot camp was easy for them they are probably not being very honest with you.” Getting through Marine Corps boot camp may be the hardest feat you will ever accomplish. Boot camp not only makes physical changes it changes you the most mentally. You look at the world from a different perspective, from a recruit point of view. Hutchison says, “If you ask any Marine about a life changing event outside of combat, the first thing that comes to mind would be boot camp.”

Boot camp gives the discipline and structure you need and is really helpful when you are in college. “When I have to write an eight-page paper and it is on a subject I don’t really like and I really just don’t want to do it, I am able to step back and say you know what. This is something I need to do I am going to turn Facebook off and I am going to set back and write this paper. You have the maturity and I am not sure I would have had that if I had not had the experiences of boot camp and the mental toughness that is earned there,” says Hutchison. Marine Corps boot camp makes men out of boys, and Marines out of men.

Turning Point Photos