David Clontz, a now retired veteran, was in the service for 19 years. He started off his service as a 0352 Infantry Tow gunner for the Marine Corps from 1996 until 2001. From 2005-2019 he was a civil engineer, heavy equipment operator, and structural engineer in the Air Force. He changed branches because the Air Force had better job options, and he could learn more there. When asked why he chose to go into the military he said, “I wanted to serve my country and there was nothing going on around here, so that was the choice I made to do that.” He was deployed overseas a total of nine times. He was first deployed in 1998 to Kenya and Tanzania on Operation Southern Watch. WESTPAC was called over there because of terrorist bombing, and they evacuated US citizens at the embassies. In 2000, he was sent to Yemen for Operation Determined Response, which helped when the USS Cole got bombed. In May of 2008, he was sent to Iraq for the mission of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and he got to come home in November of 2008. When deployed to Kyrgyzstan in 2011 for the mission Operation Enduring Freedom, he was a 3rd country national escort. He was responsible for taking non-Americans onto the base if needed. From March to November 2016, he was deployed again for the mission Operation Enduring Freedom, but this time he was in Abu Dhabi and was supporting the aircraft that was putting bombs down. All of those deployments were during conflict times. A peace time deployment that he had was in 2013 when he was sent to Australia with a team that constructed a C-Band Radar Tower, which is used for southern security.

There are an infinite number of emotions that would be going through any person’s head when they get deployed for the first time. “I was scared but excited at the same time if that makes sense, I was also very unsure about what would happen,” stated David. After getting to come home for the first time, his emotions were quite different from when he left. David said, “Getting to see my family and just being back home were the most important things to me.” While being in active service, emotions were not something that was important. “Getting your mission done was the only thing we thought about. You didn’t think about them. You just made your decision and handled the consequences if and when they came,” said David.

Negative memories and just negative things in general are always associated with being in any branch of military, but that does not mean that everything is bad and there are never any positive times in the military. When asked David replied, “Being in service really helped me grow as a person and gave me discipline in my life. I also made friends in the Marines that will be with me forever.” Sometimes men and women who have been in service are not willing to talk about their memories or things that happened from them in service. When he was asked David stated, “I don’t normally talk about these things to just anyone. I did this because you asked and it will help you with school. It made me feel good that you would ask me about these things.” Being asked if he looking back now would change going into the service or no he replied, “Absolutely not, I would go back and join in a heartbeat.”