Teacher Leads Marines In Iraq
(August 4, 2009) |
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July 26, 2009 - Most second lieutenants serving in the Marine Corps are right out of college or have prior enlisted service. But at 31 and having lived through more real-life experiences than the majority of her peers, 2nd Lt. Suzie McKinley has finally found her calling as a Marine Corps officer. |
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CAMP AL TAQADDUM, Iraq, July 30, 2009
Being a high school teacher, a professional soccer player
and a firefighter in one's local town all are great
accomplishments. But one woman who has been all three still
desired to pursue something more.
McKinley is serving her first deployment to Iraq as the
communications operations officer for the 2nd Marine
Logistics Group here. However, just a few years ago, she was
in a classroom teaching at the Winchendon School in
Winchendon, Mass.
The school was not your typical high school. It held classes
from 9th grade through postgraduate school, and students
ranged anywhere from a star athlete destined to be drafted
by the National Basketball Association to international
students who would return to their native country to serve
in their nation's military.
McKinley said she loved teaching, the impact she made on the
students and the remarkable progress she would see them
make. Yet, she added, she reached a point where she felt as
if she was coming up short. |
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“I needed to be able to do more,” she said. “I owed my
students more; I wanted to get out and get [credibility]. ...
I felt like I hadn't lived.”
In hopes of finding that “something more,” McKinley left the
school in 2003 to pursue her master's degree in English
literature at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt.,
assuming that furthering her education was the answer. But
in an unexpected, but welcome, turn of events, she found an
opportunity to play on a professional soccer team, the
Vermont Voltage, where she competed against teams from
Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and Canada.
Having played soccer since she was old enough to walk,
McKinley said, she remembers the offer as an opportunity she
could not pass up, though it was for the love of the game
and not the money; she had to hold a few jobs to make ends
meet. She coached soccer at the local high school, managed a
backcountry ski center, and if that wasn't enough, she also
became a firefighter in The Ripton, Vt., fire department.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime shot to train and play at that
level,” McKinley said. “The best part of it was to have all
the young kids come out to the games and see us play, and to
see a light in their eyes because they know there are
opportunities out there.”
But as much as she loved to play soccer, McKinley said, the
rush of adrenaline in being a firefighter and being part of
an organization where she possibly would be able to take
part in saving someone's life started to draw her into
firefighting.
But the day came when McKinley and her squad couldn't get to
a victim in time. She still vividly remembers when she and a
fellow squad member went into the building to retrieve the
body. She had trained for something like this, but when they
got to the scene, they found that there was a second victim
-- the woman's pet Rottweiler had never left his owner's
side.
That was the tipping point that caused her to search for a
way where she would be able to firefight full-time, McKinley
said.
“Once you experience something like that, you can't just do
it part time. ... I wanted all of it,” she said. “When the
pager goes off, everything stops. The world stops spinning,
and someone needs help. The only thing that matters is to
get from A to B to get to that person.”
Her first step was to attempt to enter the Air National
Guard to serve in crash and fire rescue, where she would be
able to make firefighting a career. But after beginning the
process and going through the physical, she was placed on a
waiting list. Discouraged by the waiting process, McKinley
was talked into going to see a Marine Corps officer
selection officer.
After discussing the training regimen and what she would be
tested to do -- combined with the leadership, physical
training and the opportunity to serve her country -- she she
knew she was hooked.
“This is what I was meant to do,” she said. “This is it,
because I still have those kids looking at me, but they're
not in my English class. They're Marines.”
McKinley said she finds that many of the attributes that
helped her to succeed as a teacher are transferrable to her
new role as a Marine Corps officer. It requires patience,
honesty and being OK with not being liked all of the time,
she noted. But most importantly, she added, it requires the
ability to listen.
She said she has the utmost respect for each of the Marines
with whom she has the pleasure of serving, noting “the utter
gratitude I have for them at their age to make the
sacrifice.”
“I can't imagine at 18, 19 joining the Marine Corps,” she
said, “but here these Marines are doing such an enormous
service for themselves and their country.”
Although she has no definite plan for what her future holds,
McKinley said, she does know she eventually plans to return
to teaching now that she has earned the knowledge and
credibility she yearned for when she was teaching in that
9th grade classroom. |
Article and photo by USMC 1st Lt. Michele Perez
2nd Marine Logistics Group
Special to American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2009 |
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