Mark Schlachtenhaufen

EDMOND — EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first installment of a two-part series chronicling the life of a U.S. Marine who is now a student at the University of Central Oklahoma.



BY MARK SCHLACHTENHAUFEN

THE EDMOND SUN



Sitting at his desk in a classroom on the University of Central Oklahoma campus, Joel England looks like your average college student.

But England, like every other U.S. soldier who has served in a combat zone, has a story to tell. His tale has many twists and turns that culminated in a timely encounter with a former UCO professor.



The early years

England has a self-described fairly normal American family — an older brother, an older sister and two parents.

The “weird” thing, Joel said, is the siblings’ age range. His brother, who is 11 years older, is closest to him in age. His sister is 14 years older. And Joel’s father was in his 40s when he was born.

Joel said his brother joined the Navy after spending a few years at the University of Oklahoma, and spent six years on nuclear submarines, “hating every minute of it.”

Joel’s parents are both retired. His mother was an engineer for Southwestern Bell before it was taken over by AT&T. His father was a journalist and had a newspaper column for a while.

His father also was a Marine back in the 1950s, after Korea, but before Vietnam. A grandfather was also a Marine.

“He’s one of my biggest supporters, always wearing Marine Corps hats and shirts, despite the fact he also had a son in the Navy,” Joel said.

At Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School, Joel was not the most popular guy, he said, only because he used to be quiet and reserved.

Joel played baseball all four years and became a “pretty good” pitcher, pitching in the tournament leading up to the 3A 2003 state championship game. But he didn’t have any high hopes of receiving a college athletic scholarship.

The events of Sept. 11, 2001, transpired when Joel was a junior at Bishop McGuinness. He said that since he was a boy, he had wanted to be a Marine. The events of Sept. 11 were the deciding factor.

Joel said Bishop McGuinness doesn’t send many graduates to the military, priding itself on having nearly 100 percent of its graduates going on to college, so it was kind of a big deal to his friends and classmates that he was joining the military.



‘I wanted to be Clint Eastwood’

Less than a month after high school graduation day, at age 17, England went to boot camp.

“It was without a doubt the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life, three months of absolute hell, during which time you just counted the days until graduation, living minute-by-minute, just waiting, expecting to fail, and the only ‘easy’ day was yesterday,” England said.

England’s recruiter told him he tested high enough to do practically any job in the military.

“But I wanted to be Clint Eastwood in ‘Heartbreak Ridge,’ I wanted to be the Marine in the poster, all decked out in camouflage and battle gear with his KA-BAR and rope on his chest and M-16 in his hands,” England said.

After boot camp, England became an infantry Marine, which required two months of intense training in order to earn the coveted title of “infantryman.”

After infantry training, he was sent Light Armored Reconnaissance training for fighting in light armored vehicles (LAVs), scaled-down tanks — Humvees on steroids, England called them.

In March 2004, 10 months after starting boot camp, England was sent to his permanent duty station at 29 Palms, Calif., the biggest training area for Marines preparing to deploy to Iraq.

Originally, England wasn’t supposed to go to Iraq, but instead to Okinawa to relieve soldiers who had been there for about seven months.

In July, while the rest of the battalion went to Iraq, England’s platoon began settling in for a long, “boring” stay in Okinawa. Out of the blue, they were given orders to set sail for Iraq, given five days to pack all their gear and tell their families.

They would be going into battle, what some today call the most significant battle of the entire war.

SEE Friday’s Edmond Sun for the second part of England’s story.



THE DETAILS

what you need to know

Tom Guild has established a fund to help soldiers in Edmond like Joel England. Volunteers are needed to serve on an oversight committee. To help, send e-mail to tomguild@sbcglobal.net.

Tax-deductible gifts should be made payable to “Hometown Heroes” and the donors should put “Account #4371” in the memo part of the check. Checks should be mailed to:

Hometown Heroes

Bank of Oklahoma

Edmond-Santa Fe

1400 South Santa Fe

Edmond, OK 73013