My Journey Since High School

I attended eighth grade through my junior year at Brown County High School in Nashville, Indiana. My family lived on the edge of town on Helmsburg Road; the last old white farmhouse before you crossed Jackson Branch Creek. I have two younger brothers, Gary and Kent. My Dad was the Standard Oil agent for Brown County. My Mom ran the business from our house.

My family moved to Bean Blossom, Indiana the summer of 1969. We left Indiana and moved to Fort Myers, Florida the summer of 1970 before the start of my Senior year at BCHS. I graduated from Fort Myers Senior High School in 1971, but my class ring was from BCHS. Here’s my junior class photo from BCHS and my senior class photo from FMHS.

I got engaged to my high school sweetheart from Indiana in February 1971. The day I graduated; I was on a flight back to Indiana that afternoon to start back to my old life. I was young, dumb, and naïve though with no job, no car, no money, and no future. Fortunately for my fiancé, she was smart enough to break off the engagement.

So, I left Indiana again to return to Fort Myers to a job that my Dad had found for me working for Chapman Drilling Company as a day laborer. Chapman Drilling Co. was out of Louisiana and was operating a couple of drilling rigs in the Everglades. The job was hard work, dawn to dusk, seven days a week. Really good money though, but it was dangerous work. I came close to serious injury or death in two accidents but fortunately came out unscathed.

I always wanted to go to college, but I had no idea how to go about applying and had no money for tuition. I heard that by enlisting in the military under the GI bill at the time, each year of enlistment earned you one year of college tuition after enlistment. Besides, I needed a less hazardous job. Ha, Ha.

I had a draft card, but I never got the letter from Uncle Sam. Viet Nam was winding down by late fall of 1971. So, I decided to enlist for four years, so I could go to college afterwards. Since I was about to do something stupid, I chose to go all in and enlisted in the Marine Corps.

I reported to Basic Training (‘boot camp’) at Parris Island in February 1972 and graduated that April after nine weeks. While at boot camp, I was sent to watch some “recruiting films” since I had scored high on the military entrance tests. There I learned that I could apply to go to the Naval Academy. I figured, why not? The worst the Marines could do was turn me down. Otherwise, I would be sent to college for four years and get paid while I was there, plus have a job when I got done. So, I signed an application.

After boot camp, I was sent to NAS Millington, outside Memphis to train to be a structural mechanic on jet aircraft. I learned to work on ejection seats, pressurization, and oxygen systems for A-4s and F-4s. After I graduated from A school, I was sent to the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Bainbridge, MD for nine months and then reported to Annapolis for Plebe Summer training in 1973.

In my plebe (freshman) year, I met a girl from South Jersey after the Army-Navy football game, and we dated throughout my time at the Naval Academy. Rosann and I became engaged my senior year. I graduated on June 8, 1977, with a BS in Systems Engineering and married Rosann on June 10th.

This is my graduation photo from Annapolis and a wedding photo.

After The Basic School at Quantico, I was sent to Air Defense Control Officers school at 29 Palms, CA. After graduating from that school, we were transferred to MCAS Kaneohe, HI for three years. We had both our children while stationed there, a boy and a girl.

After Kaneohe, I was transferred to Okinawa for a year unaccompanied, and my wife, Rosann, and the kids stayed with her mother. Next, I was sent to a unit in Camp Pendleton, CA outside San Diego where I was a test director for digital data systems and was promoted to Captain. Then I was sent to Chicago as the training officer for a reserve unit. After that, I was handpicked to be an instructor at the Marine Aviation and Weapons Tactics Squadron (Marine’s version of Top Gun) in Yuma, AZ. I was passed over for promotion to Major, so I got off active duty and joined the Marine Corps Reserves where I was immediately promoted to Major. I joined the same reserve unit in Chicago where I used to be the training officer. So, I became a weekend warrior.

My first civilian job was as a defense contractor in DC, and we settled down outside the Beltway in Maryland and bought a home. I worked for a couple of different firms, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Booz Allen Hamilton. I did life cycle cost estimation for the FAA’s Wide Area Augmentation System, risk analysis for the Midcourse Defense System for the Missile Defense Agency, worked for the Joint Staff, J6 at the Pentagon and I worked on the Integrated Work Plan for the FAA’s Next Generation Air Transportation System.

After I was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, I was selected for command of the reserve unit in Chicago. I left the unit and began drilling at the Pentagon pending my change of command ceremony. I was working in Crystal City across the highway on 9/11 when the plane impacted the Pentagon. I assumed command of Marine Tactical Command Squadron-48 in Chicago in October 2001.

My reserve unit was called up prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom and we were sent to work in the Marine’s Tactical Air Command Center in Al Jaber airbase in Kuwait for the war. I was there from early February until August of 2003.

I turned over command of the squadron in September 2003 and shortly thereafter was promoted to full Colonel. I was activated again in November as the head of the Aviation Command and Control Transformation Task Force at the Department of Aviation, HQMC in the Pentagon for a few months. I retired from the Marines in 2007 after 30 years of commissioned service. I retired from my civilian career in 2013.

My wife was an elementary school PE teacher in Maryland for 20 years. Shortly after she retired in 2017, we moved to Gettysburg, PA, where I am an amateur civil war historian and a part-time battlefield tour guide. Here is a recent photo of me.

My wife and I have two children and five grandsons and a granddaughter. My hobbies include baking Christmas cookies, fireworks displays — pyro musicals, Halloween costume parties, morel mushrooms, the annual Annapolis Cup croquet tournament, maintaining marksmanship — expert marksman, Chicago Bears fan, amateur civil war historian — battle of Gettysburg tour guide. I’ve been writing short memoir stories, which you can see at medium.com/@steveboggs.

And I finally made it to Woodstock for the 50th anniversary in 2019.