While their friends and classmates get ready for college or look for jobs two young Wendover men have opted for a higher and more selfless path to adulthood.
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Colton Smith and Tyler Allgood both of WWHS will become part of the few, the proud, the Marines.
In less than a month both young men will begin boot camp and the most excruciating yet rewarding periods of their young lives.
“We are of course worried, yet so very proud of him,” said Smith’s mother Kris Andersen earlier this year. “With everything going on in the world of course we are concerned but he is going to serve his country.”
Smith is the son of Kris and Donnie Andersen and Stacy Smith. Allgod is the son of Aachia Allgood.
Allgood and Smith are the first to join the Marines or for that matter any branch of the Armed forces in two years. Both young men had to pass a rigorous pre screening process for physical and mental fitness before they qualified to join one of the elite military units not only of America but of the world.
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Enlisted Marines attend recruit training, known as boot camp, at either Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego or Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. Historically, the Mississippi River served as the dividing line which delineated who would be trained where, while more recently, a district system has ensured a more even distribution of male recruits between the two MCRD facilities.
All recruits must pass a fitness test to start training; those who fail receive individualized attention and training until the minimum standards are reached. Marine recruit training is the longest among the American military services; it is 13 weeks long, compared to the Army’s 10 weeks or the Navy’s 9 weeks.
Following recruit training, enlisted Marines then attend School of Infantry training at Camp Geiger or Camp Pendleton. Infantry Marines begin their combat training, which varies in length, immediately with the Infantry Training Battalion (ITB). Marines in all other MOSs other than infantry train for 29 days in Marine Combat Training (MCT), learning common infantry skills, before continuing on to their MOS schools which vary in length.
While there has been a two year drought of military enlistments from the Wendover area, recruiters most particularly Marine recruiters have had a very good track record in the Nevada/Utah border town.
“Wendover boys like to get into the fight,” said one recruiter several years ago.
Once the two complete their training they will almost certainly be sent overseas with the high probability of either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Following the attacks on 11 September 2001, President George W. Bush announced the War on Terrorism. The stated objective of the Global War on Terror is “the defeat of Al-Qaeda, other terrorist groups and any nation that supports or harbors terrorists.” Since then, the Marine Corps, alongside other military and federal agencies, has engaged in global operations around the world in support of that mission.
Marines and other American forces began staging in Pakistan and Uzbekistan on the border of Afghanistan as early as October 2001 in preparation for Operation Enduring Freedom.The 15th and 26th Marine Expeditionary Units were the first conventional forces into Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in November 2001, and in December, the Marines seized Kandahar International Airport. Since then, Marine battalions and squadrons have been rotating through, engaging Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces.
Most recently, the Marines have served prominently in the Iraq War. The I Marine Expeditionary Force, along with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, spearheaded the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Marines left Iraq in the summer of 2003, but returned for occupation duty in the beginning of 2004. They were given responsibility for the Al Anbar Province, the large desert region to the west of Baghdad.
