The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
VETERAN DISCUSSES LIFE AFTER SERVICE
A former sergeant with the United States Marine Corps reflects on life
Jason Campbell, a former sergeant with the United States Marine Corps, sits on the deck of his Hambden Township home watching the horses that he helps his fiancee Lindsay Holland with, while reflecting on his service time and life after the military.
Campbell made the decision to enlist in 2003 while he was still a student at Mentor High School. He signed the enlistment contract at age 17 with his parents’ consent.
There were multiple reasons he gave for his decision to serve such as looking for the structure and discipline he knew he lacked and needed, and also his lack of interest in school.
“I really didn’t like school. When I was doing my homework I was a decent student,” he said. “There was no way I was going to college, even if I was interested it just wasn’t within the realm of possibilities and I really wasn’t interested.”
Campbell decided instead he wanted to get out and see the world and do something and thought the military seemed to fit his temperament and situation better than pursuing higher education or entering the workforce.
“I thought if I was going to be in the Marine Corps, I might as well tote a rifle and have that be my job.” — Jason Campbell
At the time he was running a small construction site cleaning business and could have made do with that, but he felt he wanted more.
Campbell missed his high school graduation when he was offered the chance to go to boot camp early to fill some vacant spots and entered camp with an immediate promotion from Private to Private First Class (PFC).
“I thought why not, I don’t need to go to a high school graduation. I wasn’t that sentimental about it,” he said.
Campbell notes at the time he knew there was the possibility he could be shipped off to war but it wasn’t something he thought too much about.
“This was after 2001, so I knew the war in Afghanistan was going on and I knew it was a possibility, but I didn’t expect to be embroiled in operation Iraqi freedom, which happened right before I went to boot camp,” he said.
Campbell shipped off to Paris Island, S.C., to begin boot camp in spring 2003.
After boot camp, Campbell had to determine what his military occupational speciality would be and he opted for infantry.
“I thought if I was going to be in the Marine Corps, I might as well tote a rifle and have that be my job,” he said.
So Campbell found himself heading to Infantry School at Camp Geiger in N.C. After completion of that he became a rifleman. Then he was off to the Recon Indoctrination Program where he joined the second recon battalion.
Campbell then spent the next couple of months learning basic recon technical skills along with rope tying and knot work, while waiting for a spot in the West Coast Recon School’s Basic Recognizance Course.
According to Campbell, upon completion of the BRC he came back as a Recon Marine and was attached to a Marine Expeditionary Unit.
After additional marksmanship, combat, survival and communications training, Campbell was up for his first deployment.
According to Campbell his first deployment was uneventful as he did a sixmonth inter operative training in Israel and Jordan before heading to Iraq for a brief time. His deployment also included checking on contraband (weapons, munitions, money) trafficking.
In 2006, Campbell’s battalion was up for another deployment, this one involved searching for and clearing weapons caches, searching for high value targets and talking to villagers trying to figure out how the insurgents were working.
The second deployment was pretty rough, Campbell said. They lost a lost of people, some killed in action and others wounded badly and taken out of the fight.
Campbell came back to the United states around Thanksgiving 2006, a little less than six months until his enlistment was up.
Campbell said he spent that time training recon Marines until he was honorably discharged in May 2007.
He notes that it was not an easy decision to leave the military, and although he did not realize it at first he had a tough time adjusting to civilian life.
He headed to California to attend school and graduated from California State University.
Campbell said he did not realize he was having a problem readapting to civilian life until his girlfriend of 10 years suggested he seek help when he started turning more and more to alcohol and wanting to socialize with her less.
Campbell attributes part of his inability to adapt to not having any clear sense of what he wanted to do with himself.
Campbell returned to Ohio and found a position with a fast-growing company, but changes within the company and his depression caused him to leave that job.
He found himself in a downward spiral of drinking, depression and contemplating suicide, even though he always thought suicide was a coward’s way and he wasn’t a coward, he said.
“I was pretty thoroughly planning on how I could do that but not traumatize any of the people that were supposedly at one point close to me because I didn’t want to do that, all I wanted was to hit the easy off button,” he said.
Campbell said nobody knew any of this was going on because he was what he considered a high-functioning alcoholic trying to keep up a facade or normalcy.
He said that during that time he learned a lot.
In a lucid moment, Campbell said he asked himself ‘whoa what the hell is going on? How did I even get to this point? How did this even happen?’ ”
He said he realized he had his whole life in front of him and probably should start figuring this out. Friends pointed out various sources of assistance. He attended the Veterans Administration to seek help.
“A part of me, even through the suicidal periods, remembered the parts of my life that had optimism and I wanted to regain that somehow.”
With the help of antianxiety medicines and his dog Jake, which he rescued from Lake Humane Society, he started getting back on track.
“I got the dog because I knew it would obligate me to stay alive,” he said.
After spending a year taking Jake to the dog park, he meet Holland there and started after some time talking and developing a relationship. He helps Holland with her horses and is now barn manager for her business while waiting to attend a horsemanship training in Montana.
Campbell received word on May 26, that he has been accepted into the Master program at Cleveland State University where he will be working toward a degree in Urban Development while he continues to also study horsemanship.