United inCommitment

We are absolutely thrilled to have Michael as our MC again this year. After 12 years of honorable service in the Marine Corps, Michael and his family now live in Louisiana. During Michael's time in the Marine Corps, he was very blessed to serve as Drill Instructor from 2000-2003 and become the Senior Drill Instructor in the Marine Boot Camp Documentary film called “Ears, Open; Eyeballs, Click” which was filmed by movie director Canaan Brumley out of San Diego. You can find more info on this at www.canaanbrumley.com. Michael just came back from Iraq January of 2007 and exited the Marine Corps in March. He has a heart and compassion to help others in need and as he once trained recruits to be the best he is now involved in helping these young devil dogs deal with the pains of war.

I was in the Navy for 12 years, as a Corpsman. I spent 10 years with the Marines, as a Fleet Marine Force (FMF) Corpsman. The Navy FURNISHES the Marines with doctors, CORPSMEN, dentists, dental technicians, and chaplains. I had to go through an 8 week boot camp at Camp Pendleton, WITH Marine DIs, even though we were Corpsmen. The reason for this? Remember, everywhere the Marines go, their Corpsman (Doc) goes with them. So if THEY needed the School of Infantry, the Corpsman needed the same thing because he was there, under fire, WITH his Marines. (Just a footnote for you. In the Korean war, the entire Navy was presented with 5 Congressional Medal of Honor awards. ALL 5 were Fleet Marine Corpsmen. Three of the 5 were posthumous awards, but all 5 WERE FMF Corpsmen.) I started working with ONE Recruiter here, in Kansas City, 15 years ago, when he called me and asked me to help a family that wanted to go to MCRD to graduation. I had been there, to see son Jamie graduate, and knew what to expect. It has been 15 years and over 95,000 families that I have been in contact with.

Photo by
Denise Westerberg

Clare Beasley, mother of Corporal Lynn C. Beasley is from Channahon, Illinois. She is married to Harlan and mother to Lynn and her sister Rachel, age 25. Clare is a school Social Worker and also works part time in private practice. She was one of the founding members of the Marine Family Support Group and continues to have an active role with their organization. In her spare time she likes to read, socialize and walk.

Lynn grew up in Minooka, IL, with her Mom and Dad. She enlisted in the Joliet RSS in May of 2003, before she graduated from Minooka Community High School that summer. She left for Recruit Training in December of 2003. After completion of Recruit Training and “SOI” Lynn traveled to Fort Leonard Wood, MO for two months of MOS school. Her first and last fleet duty station was Okinawa Japan. She was assigned to Truck Company, 3rd Marine Division. Shortly after arriving in Okinawa she participated in UFL, which is held in South Korea. Once she got back to Okinawa, it wasn’t long before her unit began preparation to deploy to Iraq. They arrived in country in March of 2005 to participate in OIF3. Lynn departed Iraq that June. In October of 2005, she joined her unit again back in Okinawa. In February of 2006, she transferred units and was now working directly for 3rd Marine Division in the G-4 Motor-T shop. There she was instructing other Marines, outside of their original MOS, on how to become Motor Transport Operators. She stayed in that section up until her EAS date in September of 2007. She is also a member of the Women’s Marine Association, a lifetime member of the VFW, and have recently been inducted into the National Purple Heart Hall of Fame. She now resides in Chicago IL with her sister, Rachel, and their dog, Biff. She is also a student at the Illinois Institute of Art in downtown Chicago.

Proud Marine mom of two of the Few, Patti Smith is founder and serves as president of Central Illinois Proud Families of Marines and is organizer for Operation Santa which serves the Midwest/USA which will ship 30,000 stockings to our deployed this holiday. ( www.operationsanta.info) She is also president of the only Illinois Blue Star Mothers of America chapter and location leader for Wreaths Across America for Peoria, Illinois. Married to Greg, together they have five children and five grandchildren.