Let's Talk UNLV

Unknown Speaker 0:00
You're listening to locally produced programming created in KU NV studios on public radio K, u and v 91.5. The

Unknown Speaker 0:11
content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:27
Welcome to another episode of Let's Talk UNLV K,

Unknown Speaker 0:30
u and v. 91.5. You are here with Tanya and a Leisha Hey, good to see you. Likewise, a minute. Listen, great to be back in the studio. Wonderful. So today we are meeting with the most wonderful Justin Atkins, who has the blessed and magnificent distinction of being a Marine. And I say, and I say being a Marine, because we do not give back. Our people. So once a Marine, always a Marine. Hello, Justin, thank you for joining us.

Unknown Speaker 1:02
Thank you for having me. Say hello.

Unknown Speaker 1:05
And so today we're going to be talking about on Veterans Day, right? Telling you. Oh, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:09
this is the this is the day that we have conversations about our men and women in uniform. Although we should be part of the conversation all of the time. But this is the day specifically designated for that. Yeah. Also, November is has another distinction, which is that it is the month of the Marine Corps birthday. Ooh, rah. I didn't know that. Absolutely. We celebrate our birthday in the month of November as well.

Unknown Speaker 1:33
Wonderful. Wonderful. I'm excited about today's episode. Oh, me too.

Unknown Speaker 1:37
I'm super excited. So Justin, you know i At the risk of spoiling your bio, because I've been reading it and it's like super duper exciting. Why don't you share with our listeners your origin story. You can start with the military piece. So you can start with how you got here peace. You can tell the story in whatever order suits your heart.

Unknown Speaker 2:00
Yeah, so I guess it's a long story I'm sure you saw from the bio. But yeah, I grew up. I grew up in Michigan, and the Marine Corps was just kind of never on my mind, I'd never thought about military service. My dad worked for the General Motors on the assembly line. So I just kind of thought that that was what I was going to do. And in my senior year of high school, I actually had a application to General Motors. That's where I was gonna go. And in September 11 happened. I was a senior in high school when September 11 happened. And I remember they made an announcement over the public address system and said, We don't know what's going on, we think the nation might be under attack. Many students want to go home, you can go home, or you can come to the library, and they can have the news on there. So I went to the library to stick around for football practice anyhow. And then I just remember feeling enraged and confused and upset and I didn't know what I was going to do. So um, a few of us had the idea to go to the recruiters office to join the military that day. So I did I ended up leaving school and go into the recruiters office. And it's funny that that's not one of the questions on the list was like with why the Marine Corps and it was because it had the shortest line. I got to the recruiting office, there was a line out the front door. It was the Metro Detroit recruiting center. But the Navy line, the army line goes out the door. So the Marine Corps, the shortest line, so I joined them because I had to get back to school for football practice. Yeah, I ended up going into the delayed entry program. I just told the recruiter you know, like, I'm upset about what happened, I want to fight. So he was like, Yeah, I'm putting you in the infantry, ended up graduating from high school and then taken off to the Marine Corps that way, and then I'm sure we'll talk about my military career, but end up getting medically retired, I got hurt over in Iraq, and everything else like that. It could be a normal person, but I just couldn't be in the infantry anymore. I got I didn't know what I want to do with my life. So I was like, I got this GI Bill. Let me give this a shot. I started off at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, ended up coming to UNLV thinking I want to do physical therapy, just kind of take that idea around for a little bit and ended up in medical school somehow get a master's degree down at Baylor in public health. And now I'm over here at the Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV.

Unknown Speaker 4:09
Wow. Well, we're definitely grateful to have you let me start off by saying to thank you for your service, and then also tying us in the studio. Thank you for your service. Where will we be without our servicemen and women? So thank you so much. And like I second time in the beginning of this episode, just talking about how impressive your background is. But with that being said, you know, you told us why you enlisted in so courageous, I can't say that at the age of what 17 or 18 I would have the motivation or the courage to say let me enlist, because you heard about 911 So with that with some of the experiences have you had any positive moments or what were some of your best moments while serving in the in the service?

Unknown Speaker 4:50
Yeah, there's so many it's hard to narrow it down and I love to be a Marine and something I thought that I was going to do for forever. I thought I was gonna be the old guy that they were going to come into my office one day and by If you have to retire and we've been saying that I was ever going to be taken off, because we would send like I heard that rack I had gotten medical retired. But I think like if I had to pick like one thing, it was the people I served with, I just don't think you get that connection anywhere else. I was an infantry guy ended up being an infantry platoon commander before I got out. And I knew everybody like intimately like I knew where they were from, I knew what their story was, I knew that they had nicknames, I knew about it, I knew their wives, I knew their, their brothers, their sisters, their children's, we would get together and do barbecues and whatnot. And like, I took it very, very seriously that I knew that it was my job to make sure that all those those men and women that I served with got home safely. So I know it was I mean, it was a pain to stay up all night and kind of read combat orders and read intelligence reports and everything else like that. But I always want to make sure that I didn't leave a stone unturned. So if there was another unit that had been in the area, I'd make sure I called them and kind of talked with them, but just just being there for them. And being that that driving force in their life and knowing that just my presence there on the battlefield, made them feel like they had a chance to go home and everything else like that, that really, really took that seriously. And the connections that I've made with those guys that I still keep in touch with to this day, a lot of them, I'd say by far was the best thing that I could remember from my time in the military.

Unknown Speaker 6:19
So much of your story resonates with me, you know, my family was in New York during 911. So I remember that this this, this drive this impetus, this frustration, this desire to do something, and no not knowing what the something was. So, you know, again, it's impressive that that's what you did is that you enlisted in the Marine Corps of all things. And when you talk about the shortest line, having been through a Marine Corps bootcamp, I can understand why that line was showing. Yes, indeed, it is its own wonderful, beautiful, magical beast of a thing that is, and also, again, thank you for your service. And thank you for your sacrifice. And as you talk about these relationships in these communities, you know, the other piece that's notable is that you didn't just have first of all that you are grunt I'm an old 311 For those who are familiar to the military, occupational specificially. So you are in fact a grunt, which I'm familiar with grunts, y'all are a different breed as well. But but as I as I listened to the story, and I listened to this, it's not lost on me that, you know, when you enlisted you, you had more than one deployment. So how long were these deployments? And what are some of the and first let me just preface it by saying this? Is it okay? If I ask questions related to your deployment, because not everyone feels comfortable sharing things around their deployment, and I don't want to put you in a position where you have to share where you're not uncomfortable. Are you okay with me? Okay, wonderful. Um, so what are some of the most memorable things about the deployment? Like, from the point where you discover that you were going to be deployed to actually being deployed? What are some things that stick with you?

Unknown Speaker 8:06
Yeah, so I was, I remember when I started off in the Marine Corps, I think that I'd written in my bio to that I was security forces. So I ended up guarding nuclear missiles down in Georgia, starting off and in the invasion that happened and everything else. So we kind of felt down there, like we're missing the war, because you're in the infantry you want you want to go and fight. Um, so when I got my orders to campus, June, I was very excited about it, I'd gotten signed to anti-terrorism battalion, and you just kind of wondering, alright, when's it gonna happen for us? When's it going to happen for us. And then we finally gotten told that we were going to deploy and it was supposed to be, I think, in January of 2006. But they ended up bumping us up to October. So we, I don't know what the reason for that was, I think I was a lance corporal at the time, so I didn't know much about anything. But I just knew that that's when we had to go. So I kind of went home and told my wife and my kids, I guess kind of take off a little bit earlier. And I remember like being like God, that saying, like, be careful what you wish for and and it kind of got very real when I knew that I only had a month to go. And then you're kind of you know, guys from boot camp that had gone over there before. And guys, I'd go into the infantry training battalion with the guys over there in the war, guys would have gotten messed up and stuff. And I just remember asking other guys in my unit who had been there before, I'm like, you know, I only questions you're worried about like, what's combat? Like, you know, what is it like to get shot at? Like, how am I going to go and do my job as an infantry man and know that I'm most likely going to have to, like, you know, kill another human being and like, how am I going to live with that? And how am I going to deal with these types of things and all the questions that go through your brain, and then getting on that plane that the first time and then like, the plane takes off? And you're like, alright, well, I hope that I get to come back and step on American soil again, but you don't know that you know, and then you take off into the, the other country and you just got that that fear of the unknown. I don't know what that happened. We land in Kuwait and you're seeing these units coming out of Kuwait and you're looking at these guys and their faces and like, some of the guys that weren't so lucky that lost a limb or whatever, and you're like I can't believe that I'm getting ready to go into this and just the sheer terror but it's like I said before, there's certain guys in the unit you just kind of gravitate to that had been to combat before. And then you just kind of look at them like, Alright, he's still calm. We're okay right now, cuz I didn't know what to go on. But you've got the certain certain warfighters or whatever that have been there done that, like, they just look calm, they were collected, and you don't know how they're in that state of mind. But they just kind of make you calm, not knowing what you're getting into. And I remember getting on the helicopters at night and flying into Iraq. And when you hit the ground, and like you step off, and your boot touches that soil and you realize like you're in a combat zone, it's just this surreal feeling that just rushes over your body like you never want you know, I going back like I had a flashback to the moment where like, Okay, why I signed up for this, I volunteered for this. Now, here I am in Iraq. I'm a guy, I think I was like a 19 year old kid at the time or something like that, I get a weapon on me, I get these other things like that. And like now I've got to do what I've sent her to do. That first appointment kind of got cut short, I ended up getting hit by a roadside bomb. In January, we'd gotten there in October. And then I think January 21, I got hit by a roadside bomb, down met evacs to launch tool and then back to the United States. I spent a year in a wheelchair, and then they want to medically retire me. So I remember we were out on on a patrol. And we got an ambush. From the side, we were a mounted patrol were mounted unit and Humvees or whatnot. And then I was the middle stick commander. So I got tasked with going in flanking the enemy position. And as we were driving towards the area, the insurgency that kind of ambushed us, they kind of knew we were going to take the road because we were a mounted unit. Um, so we ended up hitting them to anti tank mines that were stacked underneath the ground, blew my leg off, killed some guys, my vehicles. And I was I don't remember much from that night and knock me unconscious. But I remember when I got to the hospital in Baghdad after the meta back and then like, kind of coming to and then realizing what was going on and asked him like where am I guys that know like, you know, like, Vice Corporal Scott and private California didn't make it like you're okay. And then like we're going to amputate your foot. And I was like, there's absolutely no way in fact, you're gonna amputate my foot like I wanted to go back out there because you don't want to deal with the lane and the hospital and the like eating three meals a day and you're you're warm, and you're watching TV. And like knowing that all those other guys that you served with and connected with are still out there doing it. So I refuse medical retirement, and ended up deploying another time for a year to train the Iraqi military. And it was so neat to see the different sides of that. So it was interesting to go back and train guys that you had died, you come to find out you fought against the first time. So that at that point, we kind of overthrown the Iraqi government, they kind of stood down and these guys were coming from their homes. And it kind of reminded me of United States when it got started with like the Minutemen and all these other people, they were bringing their own weapons from home, they weren't getting paid by the government because there was no government, we were having to go and pick them up and like these little discreet locations in the middle of the desert so that insurgents wouldn't know where they were coming from, and then drive them onto the base. And then you would talk to them, you know, you hear their stories like, oh, you know, where are you from? Like, how long have you been in the Iraqi military and like, oh, I wasn't a professional Iraqi military. And then I plot and collusion and you hear some of them and find solutions like, well, when were you in solution? And you find out like, Okay, well, we probably shot at each other. But then it just kind of puts things in perspective for you that like this is just a human being that was told things over a controlled media thing by you know, Saddam Hussein, and they were told that we were coming to overthrow their country and take their oil. And then you put it into perspective, it's like, well, here I was, when I was a 1718 year old kid in high school, and I heard my country was under attack, I did what I did, and this guy did when he did so just kind of puts things in perspective for you in that humanistic nature. And then getting to learn about them, I go to church with them even on that Muslim to kind of learn more about their culture, I ate their food with them and the child hogs. There's only 19 of us on that team Marines, we're living amongst like 3000 Iraqi soldiers. Um, so at first you kind of get nervous, you're like, you know, if at any point, these guys decide that they don't want us here anymore, there's nothing that we're going to be able to do about it. But just the connections we made with those guys, and then going into combat and teaching them like, you know, this is how you, you write a combat order. This is how you deploy, when things happen. These are the tactics that we use to get around them. On that second deployment, I ended up getting into a machine gun fight with a place where we got in the ambush or whatever. And then just seeing it from the machine gun turret then flanking the position, throwing grenades into subdue the guy and everything else like that. Dragging the bodies out clearing the building and it just like it really clicked that they went from that animosity to like just being a well oiled machine and a team and just watching them take everything that we taught them and just kind of run with it. We'd stayed there for a year and then when I came back, they'd put me as a combat instructor so I talked a bunch of younger Marines, those combat skills and everything else like that. spent three years teaching as a combat instructor and and they sent me out to California If and when they found out that that was a master instructor weapons and tactics that can be used and abused pets. They deployed me again out in the Pacific Theater. So I went to Africa, Italy, Japan, Korea, and I taught a bunch of classes to foreign militaries about human trafficking. How to interrogate witnesses, patrolling skills, weapon skills, kind of you name it. The last appointment was by far the funnest, because I was getting paid combat duty paid to be in like countries or whatever. And like, you could still go to the bar at the end of the day, which we liked his Marines. That was the funnest. But yeah, those were the three deployments I'd gone on. I know that was super long winded, but that was that was all of them.

Unknown Speaker 15:42
Oh, no, that was That was excellent. What a powerful story. What a powerful narrative. There are so many pieces of it that that resonated with me to my core, there are pieces of it that are unfamiliar to me. My unit when you said, Campbell's Yeah, and I was like, Ooh, let's gern I remember Campbell. I was with headquarters battery 10th Marines when we deployed to Desert Storm, but it was a very different experience and the experience that you're that you're describing now, but I do remember being that young and writing wills and signing over things and wondering when you got on the plane, what was on the other side, that unknown, was truly terrifying. You know, I think that unknown is always terrifying when you know that you're not deploying for training, and you're deploying for real for real kind of way. But your story is, your story is actually incredible. And the other piece that's interesting to me is so very Marine, like, so I'm missing a limb. But don't you dare, off of duty?

Unknown Speaker 16:39
Yes.

Unknown Speaker 16:40
Don't you dare tell me I can't go back. You know, that that level of commitment, you know, at the risk of making other branches, upset by the level of commitment to each other, and to the mission is such a strong attribute of being a Marine, you know, my comfort, my safety matters less than the fact that my unit needs me in that other side. So I guess the question I have for you is, what do you think? What is something that you think you learned about yourself? As a Marine? Like, what what what did marine being a Marine teach you about you?

Unknown Speaker 17:16
Yeah, I mean, I remember when I first got the bootcamp, and I was kind of wondering all that, that Olson, you just kind of learned that there's really nothing that you can't deal with, at the risk of sounding cocky. But you're just kind of every single time that I was thinking to myself, you know, like, I'm not going to be able to do this, I can't run another step, I can't run another mile, I can't put another pound in my pack and carry it. Um, it started off being that drill instructor that was there to kick you in the behind and tell you, I guess you can, and absolutely, you will. And it wasn't even a choice in the first place. So I don't know why you're thinking about it, to kind of make you do it, but then that that kind of just gets embodied after a while. And that just kind of becomes who you are. And I think that may be one of my problems today is why I just keep on going to school and keep doing more and more and more, because it's just, you always have a thirst for more. And I feel like that just kind of comes as a Marine, you just want you accomplish one mission. And you're immediately looking to the next mission. So it's like, Alright, what's next on the docket? What's next time I played? This wasn't hard enough. What can I do to make this more challenging? Or? Or how can I test myself to go a little bit further, but I just kind of learned myself as a Marine as I went through all those experiences, and combat and bootcamp and everything else, and you name it that like, not only can I do it, I can do this. And I can do very well to the point where other people are getting didn't want to try to do better than me. So I just I just learned the capabilities I had as a leader that I'd never knew that I had, it just kind of got dug out of me, I learned that I can always I can carry it one more pound, I can always, you know, go one more step, I can run another mile, I can just, I can always push myself to keep going further, even if it seems like I can't I guess that we're just kind of not in my vocabulary anymore.

Unknown Speaker 18:52
So funny. Marines aren't did not copy at all. He said, That's expensive sound. Nobody will ever attribute that to marine. So I love

Unknown Speaker 19:01
that. I think that the statement, there's nothing I can't do. Is that what helped lead you or did it guide you to the motivation of wanting to become a doctor? Tell us a little bit about that. For those who are listening.

Unknown Speaker 19:15
Yeah. So being a doctor was not on my radar at all. I had wanted to go. I was thought I was going to work for General Motors. My family did not have a lot of money growing up. So my my father told me, you know, college is not an option. So if you do want to go to school, we can't pay for it. I'm the first person in my school to ever in my family to ever go to college. So we didn't know about student loans and stuff like that. We just always thought like somebody whose family was going to college they had a lot of money to be able to send their kid there. So I played football, I played hockey, I played baseball and I was on a rain but I just wasn't that good. So like the sports scholarships weren't coming through. So I kind of sounds weird, but had 911 not happened and changed the entire trajectory. In my life, I would probably still be working on the assembly line up in General Motors and stuff like that and doing very fine. I mean, that was a that was a great job in my family when I was a kid. But I found myself in a rack and didn't really know what I was going to do for the rest of my life, I thought that I was just going to stay in the Marine Corps forever, like I said, but we got intelligence one time that there was things buried underneath a desert. So the NBA teams are fighter jets, and they can kind of fly over top. And then the pilots can get heat signatures in the ground when they fly over at nighttime. So they had called our unit and let us know it by k, we're getting a lot of weird heat signatures in the desert. We think there's things buried over there, we'd like you to go check it out. Intelligence kind of done like a satellite sweep in the area. And so there was no insurgents in the area. When my unit got there, it was, couldn't have been further from the truth. So it ended up being like a three day fight for this little town, we ended up launching mortars into the town, we had to try to attack the town like two or three times and trying to minimize civilian casualties. But this town had gotten decimated. So by the time we finally gotten through, and stuff like that, and gotten all the survivors together, and everything else, and then hits on the stuff that the pilots were talking about, in our leaders, like, alright, well, we need to get the Navy in here to kind of take care of these people. So they flew in a bunch of Navy positions, and then I was an infantry guy. So I was tasked with providing security to the doctor I was with. But it was amazing to me to see the power that that guy had that day. And that towns is a little little town in the middle of nowhere western Iraq. I don't know if the governor there were no roads to even get to it. I don't know if the government even knew about these people. But you could tell that it was probably the first time that somebody had ever just stopped or like put that much bother to fly physicians to their town to take care of them. And like, see how overwhelmed these people were with joy. So I have a doctor, like come in front of them and ask them Are you okay? Like, let me see that cut on your arm. Let me treat this for you. Let me catch this broken arm like your kid is going to be okay. And then like the competence that that doctor instilled in those people that day. And he kept telling people all the time, we're here for you, we're here for you. And to see the power that he had. And then like, I thought that I was pretty powerful being you know, like, a 20 something year old Marine and walking off the weapon like Oh, my God, I can liberate countries and I can tear down cities and I can fix the world. You know, though I the power he had that day. And then at that point, I was like, Oh, maybe I should be a doctor. But I just didn't see a pathway. So I was this body just got done with a three day battle in the middle of the desert with a weapon and sweaty and nasty no college whatsoever. I'm like, Okay, well, that's that's never gonna happen. But no, like I said, when I gotten out of the ring Corps, I didn't know what I wanted to do when they medically retired me. So I had the GI Bill, I'm like, Well, let me try this college thing out, I tried to go into a lot of physical therapy to, to get back to a point where I can't even walk and get on the wheelchair and everything else like that. So I'm like, Well, I think I'd like to be a physical therapist and be that person to put people back on the right path. And then just kind of being a leader in the Marine Corps, I saw like how much physical therapists have to check with insurance, how much physical therapists have to check with the Doctor, what's the plan? What's the plan, and I just kind of like to be the person in charge. So everything on the inside, and he kept telling me like, you need to just go and try to go to medical school, but it's so intimidating, like the path with the letters of recommendation and having to pass the MCAT. And like, I've got to take a year biology at a year of chemistry and a year of organic chemistry and all these courses. It just made me want to scream when I was signing up for them. And just thinking like, you know, there's no way I'm going to be able to do this. But again, that little marine voice in the back. It's like, well, yes, you can and you know, you can't, so you just need to stop it and do it. So I did and then I ended up here. So that's that's kind of how I got to medical school.

Unknown Speaker 23:33
You know, some of what you said it's so a lot of what you said is really beautiful. So the things that captured my mind and captured my attention were the relationship. He says, you know, the things that not only you learned about yourself, but you learned about relationships to others, and how that transition from warrior to healer happened, that, that transition from warrior to healer. And I loved when you talked about the ways in which you can, you can change and you can change the world and you can change people's trajectories and that you wanted to be on the forefront of helping people have a better life one way or another. So it seems like your calling just shifted. And in some ways, they're still very much aligned. What was the transition like for you to transition from? From marine to civilian to then a med student? Like, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Unknown Speaker 24:25
Yeah, it was it was rough. Yeah, so I remember my first day. Well, my wife and I, we got out of the Marine Corps was my wife was a Marine also. So she retired, she took the early retirement. And then I'd gotten medically retired within about six months of her doing her 15 years. So we got out in California and we thought about staying in California but it was just so expensive to try to live in San Diego with two people we didn't know what our future was. We didn't know what we're gonna do for a living. Anything else like that. So her mother in law was living or my mother in law her mother was living in Kansas City. So we moved out to Kansas City much cost cheaper cost of living out that way. So I started off at University of Missouri, Kansas City. And then I remember when I was going through accepts and taps, I don't know what they're calling it these days in the Marine Corps, but they told us, like, you know, when you're going out there in the world trying to like, do a professional front and dress for the job you want. So at the time, I thought I wanted to be a physical therapist. So I'm like, Okay, well, this is the Doctor of Physical Therapy, doctors wear suits, you know, I didn't know what doctors wore. So I wore a suit. To my very first day of school at University of Missouri, Kansas City, I got there 20 minutes early to the classroom, I can like two or three days before and just kind of recount out like, alright, this is the route that I'm going to take to get to school. There's traffic this way, I'm gonna go this way I checked, like, you know, 45 minutes before I left the house, I'm like, the maps to make sure that there were no traffic jams, anything else like that? figured out where I was gonna park with which ways I was gonna take to get to school. And then I got to the classroom early, went and sat down. And I was like, the only one in the classroom, and I'm looking at my watch. And I'm like, It's 15 minutes of class starts, where's everybody, you know, like, because in the Marine Corps, if you're not 15 minutes early, you're late. So I'm kind of wondering, I'm like, I can't believe like, nobody's here like, this is this is college, we're supposed to be professional. And then like, class starts, like, I think it was an 8am class. And kids are rolling in 815 828 25, and have your pajamas on and like they're barely awake. And there's kids coming in and just put their heads down. And like, here's the person that prepared a lecture took time to get everything together, like drove out of their way to come in. They didn't have to do that, you know, I like less their family, drove on dangerous roads or sitting down inside of a classroom, and are presenting things that they took time they have a PhD in this clearly they care about it. And I just couldn't imagine I'm like, How could you be so rude to put your head down and show up this late and not not be dressed and not take notes, and not even even if you don't care, at least pretend for their benefit that you cared. And I was, I was so angry and mad. And I was I was waiting for the teacher because I came from the military, I was this, this lady is going to blow up on the classroom. And she just never did. And I was like, I can can't believe how well she's handling this. And then I remember driving home from school that day. And it was like tears running down my face. I was like, because I was so upset for her that somebody would be that disrespectful. And I'm driving home and talking to my wife, I'm like, I don't think this is gonna work out. Like I can't go there every single day. I ended up making friends with another veteran that was on campus as a veteran senator. So I remember calling my counselor and being like, I don't think this is gonna work out, you know, thanks. but no thanks. And then he was like, let's get you over to the Veterans Center and just kind of talk to people over there. He's like, this isn't this isn't abnormal for you to be feeling this way. But I kind of talked to the the other vets they called it the bunker at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, it was kind of like our Hangout. I hadn't known about that before. But just hearing other veterans being like, you just need to chill, relax, kids are gonna show up late, you just take care of you and focus on what you need to take care of, and let them focus on whatever you're on a different trajectory. And they said, you know, at the end of the day, these are going to be the people you're competing against when you're applying for these competitive places you want to go to so I just kind of take that as a moment of comfort or whatever it was, it was very hard for me to just kind of unstrap the pack, like people talked about it, like, you know, dropping their pack or whatever. But to drop that pack and drop that weight and drop that burden and realize like, this is not the military, that this kid wants to come in 20 minutes late. And in pajamas, that's not affecting me at all, I can still pay attention to her and and clearly that professor doesn't care. So like, let me just get what I can out of this course. And they're gonna get what they get out of it. As long as I'm, you know, getting an A in this course, like achieving, getting everything that I paid for and really getting my money's worth. That was kind of like what I told myself to just worry about me when I could control and not worry so much about everybody else. But that was a huge transition for me going to college coming out of the Marine Corps after 12 years.

Unknown Speaker 28:47
Yeah, so much of that is, is is very, very familiar in terms of my own transition. I just want to say thank you so much for being here. And also I think we should probably put you bring you back for another conversation. I'm

Unknown Speaker 29:00
sitting here thinking like this one way to say that we need part two.

Unknown Speaker 29:03
Absolutely. I feel like there's more to be said here. So we're so I hope that we can have you back another time. Um, thank you for being the embodiment of Semper Fi. And for those that don't know what Semper Fi is, Semper Fidelis, always faithful, always faithful. So thank you for embodying what always faithful is is there. Before we close out our show? Is there anything that you would like to share with the larger community before we go,

Unknown Speaker 29:26
you know, veterans are just a part of the community. And I think that just kind of meeting people where they're at. And that's when I learned what I had to do was just kind of meet them and be there and in the moment and not be worried about everything else like that.

Unknown Speaker 29:38
Thank you so much for that. Thank you for giving us your time.

Dr. Renee Watson 29:44
More or less talk to UNLV. Be sure to follow us on social media where you can get the latest updates on the show plus great behind the scenes content. We're on Facebook and let's talk about the podcast Twitter. Let's talk UNLV and Instagram and let's talk UNLV

Transcribed by https://otter.ai