Posted on 06/15/2010 2:42:05 PM PDT by SandRat
Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego
MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT SAN DIEGO, Calif., June 15, 2010 – Marine Corps Pfc. Patrick Collman, assigned to Platoon 2109, Company E here, could have gone to Officer Candidate School, because he has a bachelor’s degree.
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Collman said he wanted to start from the bottom and work his way up, as he has demonstrated in virtually every aspect of his life leading to boot camp. “That way, if you do get into a higher position, you know what the lower positions are going through,” he explained.
Having grown up in the mountains of Colorado, Collman loved the outdoors. He became a Boy Scout, attaining the rank of Eagle Scout during his senior year of high school. But before he could lead scouts, he had to start somewhere. Just as Marines start as recruits, Boy Scouts must go through the ranks and start as Cub Scouts.
“I was never satisfied with stopping halfway,” he said. Earning Eagle Scout rank was just another challenge for him, he added.
Just as in scouting, Collman was not satisfied with just being a high school student in his teenage years. During high school, he worked for three years designing databases for a telecommunications firm. It made him realize that he didn’t like “suit-and-tie jobs,” he said, but it had its own merits.
Collman also was active in search and rescue, and he became a certified wilderness first responder. He participated in search and rescue operations, was responsible for saving the lives of many people, performed CPR and organized helicopter evacuations, he said.
After graduating from high school, Collman went to college at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He operated his own contracting and construction company and worked in the retail business during college to pay for tuition, books and his cost of living. He started his business on a whim during his sophomore year in college, he said, because job opportunities weren’t abundant. He performed tasks such as staining, painting and building decks.
“It was easy to do, and I like working with my hands,” Collman said. “There’s a craftsman’s pride to that line of work. When you paint a house and walk by it a year later and it’s not peeling, you can think, ‘I did that.’ It pays well, so I raided [a home-improvement store] to get myself started.”
He took out ads and walked around neighborhoods putting out flyers, and said he always had very competitive pricing. The business was mostly a “one-man band,” he said.
He graduated from the college with a bachelor’s degree in history and a secondary social sciences teaching license. He got a job teaching high school sophomore- and junior-level history and government classes in Erie, Colo., prior to joining the Marine Corps.
Collman said he hadn’t planned on becoming a teacher; he had started out studying engineering.
“With teaching, the success is measurable,” he explained. “When students go from C’s to A’s, you can see the change right in front of your eyes. A teacher educates his students not only on the subject, but on life. They teach ethics, morals and decision-making.”
Teachers can have a direct influence on their students’ lives, he said. Teaching history, he said, showed him he could turn something dreaded into something fun.
“I’d hear my fellow students saying, ‘History sucks,’” Collman said, looking befuddled and disgusted at the notion. “I loved history. I was tired of people bashing on history. It was like a little extra salt in my wound.”
Although he’d established himself as a teacher, Collman said, he had always planned on enlisting in the Marine Corps. In high school, he said, he initially looked into all the military branches because he wanted to serve his country.
“There’s just something [Marines] have that the other branches don’t,” he said. “They are different from the other branches. Part of it is in the way they carry themselves.”
The difference was obvious to him, he added, when he met his first Marine recruiter.
“I walked in, and there he stood,” Collman said. “He said to me, ‘So you want to join my Marine Corps?’ The way he said it was like, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’” Collman said he took it as a challenge.
Collman talked to his first recruiter when he was 16, and signed up when he was 22. He still remembers that first recruiter throwing that challenge at him.
That challenge was to become a Marine, and to defend his country, just as his grandfathers did before him, he said.
“I’ve always been a die-hard patriot,” Collman said. He was a freshman in high school during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, so that was even more motivation for him to join, he added.
“There is a threat and someone has to stand against it,” he explained.
Though he has been trained to be a teacher, an Eagle Scout, a contractor and a wilderness first responder, Collman said, he is a Marine first, and now that he has completed boot camp, he plans to continue to challenge himself.
Let go, don’t hold back. What do you really feel?
I think it is your turn. Don’t you?
Right, 'cuz flying an A-10 at tree top level is boring as hell. Carrier landings? Yawn. Commanding a Battalion? Who needs it? /s
I don't smile...but unlike you, I don't whine (see tag line).
Sober up and explain to folks who are reading this thread why what you are saying is important!
It ain't about me!
A quote. A matter of opinion (misinformed as it may be). I offered mine.
If you differ with it...make your frikken point and quit whining.
You don't need to be confrontational with others who have a point of view different than yours...they are not a threat to you.
Just explain why you have an different perspective to offer.
It isn't about you or me...it is about the young men who are trying to make plans for the future...and who are considering the U.S. Military.
BTW, there are young men reading FR in an effort to decide what they should do for the future.
Are you speaking to them?
You deserve a refund from your last anger management class.
Sorry if I offended you...I mean well but am somewhat feisty by nature.
That said...let's come together to encourage our young men and women to consider the military as a wonderful career option.
You are the one being confrontational. Shove off.
Note to the immature: grown-ups know how to stop the crap and hold their hand out to stop silly little disputes.
But all you have to say is..."you are the one being confrontational. Shove off."
Why don't you come back with a response that honors yourself and me?
If I have erred (and I know I have), I hope you will forgive me.
Don't answer just yet. Wait until tomorrow morning.
You’re pushing that troll boundary. You’re throwing out personal insults and being belligerent with anyone who disagrees with you.
Reread the thread. I am simply defending myself.
If I am in the wrong, I apologize (and I am human...I make plenty of mistakes).
But it isn't about me...it is about you.
How big is your spirit?
You run behind the skirt. Troll, indeed!
You need to man up!
Or do you need to run to the Admim Mods to protect you?
The first and probably the only smart thing I learned in the Marine Corps was to eyeball an officer’s uniform to see if he had a fire watch ribbon.
Can you be honest...or will you only try to defend your weakness?
Or will you run to Mommy again?
BTW, to the Admin Mods...I love FR and have for years.
I love the honesty of FR...its grit, its strength and love of country...its history in the defense of freedom!
Posters reveal their vulnerabilities. They speak from the heart.
And, of course, as much as posters do their very best...they still fail from time to time...they stumble when they try to speak the truth.
Our posters are kind and magnanimous...they have big shoulders.
Now TankerKC...show us your big shoulders.
I guess there is a new standard for what the mods will allow here. So be it.
Your name calling and histrionics are a sign of weakness.
I learned a lot about discipline in my 28 years in the military. You have none. I do. So, I recognize that there is nothing that can really be done about an internet tough guy.
You’ve got a chip on your shoulder. I suspect it is because you never did any time in the service and feel guilty or envious.
Know this, though…you would NEVER dare to say any of this to my face.
Guaranteed.
And, now I shall shove off.
No guts.
This fine young man is the polar opposite of scum like Obama and Bill Clinton.
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