A Veteran’s View

By Jim Daly

Many people have asked me over the years: “Would you do it again?”

I am 60 percent disabled from my service in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. I have two fractured vertebrae that never healed. I have nightmares two to five times a night. My hands are weak and burn and hurt almost all the time. I have occasional mild depression. I have occasional rashes break out on my hands. I have residuals from a deep penetrating wound to my right forearm, including muscle weakness, nerve damage, chronic pain, and scaring. I have residual weakness in both shoulders and arms from dislocated shoulders. And possible Traumatic Brain Injury residuals of explosive concussion and head impact from a fall from an aircraft resulting from a 122mm rocket impact within 15 meters.

But my answer is always the same: Absolutely.

I would not trade any of the experiences I had in the Marine Corps for anything. I grew from a naïve, insecure, confused, immature boy from the backwoods of Western Washington to an educated, confident, and (I believe) capable old man. I have lived in 27 countries around the world and have come to know and work with people of many different cultures. I have earned five college degrees. I have led crews of technicians in aircraft maintenance including 1,162 at one point. I have flown in many different types of military aircraft, including 8 G’s in an F-4 fighter. I have parachuted out of helicopters, jets, and propeller aircraft. I have scuba-dived in several oceans, seas, many lakes and rivers. I have used many different types of weapons from hand guns, to rifles, to light and heavy machine guns, grenades, rocket launchers, and flame weapons. I taught college for nine years in four different departments.

I have worked with some of the finest men and women in uniform as well as with civilians on many different projects, some of which have benefited the military and a couple that have benefited the world. I have worked with a team, under intolerable conditions, for what seemed like forever, to accomplish the impossible. I have saved lives.

I have helped to design and develop computer programs, systems, and tools that are still in use. I have made technical presentations to a theater full of generals, admirals, senators, congressmen, Secretaries of the branches of the military and the Assistant Secretary of Defense as well as demonstrating a system that is still in use in the military today on national news.

I have had a wonderful life. And it all started in Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego five weeks after graduation from high school. But not all military duty is “good duty.” I have worked for seven days straight, fell asleep under an airplane for two hours and got up to go five more days with a meal every third day. I have spent 24 hours on the flight line for five months and the only reason I got to go to the barracks is that my uniform was falling off my body. I have crawled through the mud and spent five days in a storm on the coast of South Carolina in a tent. I have been happy to eat a handful of termites because there wasn’t anything else to eat. And I have had to kill people.

The military, and specifically the Marine Corps, is not for everyone. And not everyone in the military gets all of these types of opportunities. But the military can take a confused, insecure, naive young person and in only a few years, give them training and experiences that will mold them into confident, capable, and productive members of the military and then of our community.

They can get training and experience that can give them a lifelong career. They can get in-service training and off-duty college education that will prepare them for the future. They can go places and meet people that will change them forever. A person in the military can often make that experience what they want. They can many times create opportunities such as some of those I experienced.

I highly recommend that everyone consider the military experience. It is good for most people.

Even though I am a little beat up and had to endure some pretty uncomfortable times and places my experience is something that I would not trade for anything. I am the man I am today because of those experiences that I received in the Marine Corps.

Yes, I would do it again, even knowing all that I know today. Specially knowing what I know today.

Please Remember: Many of our young men and women have sacrificed greatly around the world, to protect our country, our rights and freedoms, our allies, and the flag of the United States of America. I am proud to have been one of them, and would gladly defend this great country again today or any day.

Jim Daly is a retired Marine Corps captain with a long involvement in the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He lives in Aberdeen.