News : VS teachers inspired after week with Marines

Ms. Duffy and Mr. Islas spent a week with U.S. Marine recruits and celebrated with them as they finished their boot camp. When the latest group of U.S. Marine recruits successfully completed the Crucible - the 54 hour challenge which calls on them to prove they are mentally and physically strong enough to become Marines - a pair of Vinton-Shellsburg teachers was among the crowd waiting to welcome, congratulate and eat with them. VSHS Associate Principal Tony Islas and Family Consumer Science Teacher Annalise Duffy had spent the week at with the latest recruits, spending a few days at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, along with a day at Camp Pendleton and another day the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, with several dozen other educators from throughout the U.S. "We were able to sit down and have dinner and speak with a recruit just about their personal experience with the Marines and where they were going with the opportunities the Marines had to offer them,"� says Duffy, who ate with a Nebraska recruit who had two weeks of training left. Tony Islas carried this barrel as part of a team challenge during educators' week at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. "Those Marines had just finished the 54-hour Crucible test, and we got to have their first meal with them since starting the Crucible and since officially becoming Marines,"� Duffy explains, adding that at the top of the hill at the end of the Crucible, the drill instructors call the recruits a "Marine"� for the first time and hand them their Eagle, Globe and Anchor. "It was truly one of the best educational experiences I've ever been a part of,"� says Duffy. "I definitely have a new, more positive perception of the Marines and the military as a whole."� Duffy describes the week the teachers spent near San Diego as "basically a mini-crash course on what it's like to be a Marine recruit, and also all the educational and job opportunities available for a successful career within the Marines for those who re-enlist after your 4 years. "Each Marine we talked, to whether they were a recruit or lifer, male or female, all had a different story about what led them to the Marines, and how the Marines had impacted them through instilling discipline, self concept, focus, responsibility, respect or all of the above,"� says Duffy. The teachers also had the opportunity to experience some of the uniform and training the recruits were experiencing. "Obviously getting to participate in their obstacle courses and physical fitness items was fun, but I personally enjoyed all the conversations we got to have with Marine recruits as well as those who had been in the Marines for 15-20 years,"� says Duffy. Islas said he was astounded at how the recruits lose their identity during the training process. "They have to refer to themselves not as 'me' or 'I' but as 'This recruit,'"� said Islas. What Islas found most impressive about the experience is how the Marines focus on education. The learning environment there is like a small Division 1 college, he said. "Every job they do includes course work and online modules,"� he said. "Marines have the opportunity to earn a degree in their four years, and still qualify for the GI Bill after that."� Marines take a test called the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) to help them find which jobs they are most qualified to do. Islas said that he learned at Camp Pendleton that Marines have the opportunity to re-take the test, with study help from a tutor, if there is another occupation they would like to pursue.