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Creators & Guests
What is The Ghost Turd Stories Podcast?
The Ghost Turd Stories Podcast was born out of a place of grief. Having lost my best friend from the Marine Corps in the early hours of 2023, I realized that this feeling was all too familiar. I wanted to do something, not only for the loss I felt, but for the loss I knew many families were enduring day to day.
We believe that a major way to relieve the stressors of life is to talk, laugh, cry, and share our experiences without fear of offense. We hope to attract veterans and first responders as well as anyone who is interested in knowing more about what it’s like to be in our shoes while we wear or wore those shoes.
TROY GENT: So I just wanted to record a story about my crazy journey to the Marine Corps for the second time.
So I'm going to read most of this.
After I left the Marine Corps in 2001, I went to college with no intention of ever going back into the Marine Corps.
But when I was 28 in 2006, I decided that my conscience was going to get the better of me.
It bothered me for the entire five years up to this point that I was in school.
It took me six years to finish my college degree from the time that I started.
But I left the Marine Corps in 2001, as mentioned, with the intent of never looking back.
However, for five years, my survivor's guilt was getting the best of me and eventually won out.
I needed to go to war to feel better about who I was and the American that I wanted to be.
I had served for four years already but I had not gone to war and I felt war was the reason I had joined in the first place.
After five years of war, America needed prior service personnel to serve because of their experience and I couldn't resist the call any longer.
I decided in the fall of 2006 that I'd re-enlist but in the Army National Guard instead of the Marine Corps.
"Not a bad choice," I thought, considering their level of sacrifice in the war on terrorism.
Many National Guard units had seen a lot of combat and saw a lot of combat and had sacrificed much.
I needed a college degree to become a commissioned officer, however, so I put that thought behind me and thought I'd just re-enlist but this would enable me to keep my job as a UPS driver
I pretty much gave up on completing my last two classes.
I needed 120 credit hours to graduate with a bachelor's degree.
And I thought, "Well, I got a great job as a UPS driver, there's no need to finish, I have 114 credit hours, but I'm never going to finish because what's the point?”
I could keep my job as a UPS driver, I could deploy for a year to Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever they asked me to go, and then I could come back.
I had only signed up for three years.
So after three years, my obligation would be complete and I could just move on with my life.
That was my thinking.
The National Guard signed me up as a 13 Fox or a forward observer field artillery and shipped me off to Camp Williams near Salt Lake City, Utah for a three-week forward observer school.
It was a great school and I learned a lot about calling for indirect fire support.
Besides being extremely homesick from my wife and two daughters, I really enjoyed the soldiers I met from all over the United States.
I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
I'll always be a member.
I'll always have faith in the Church and the knowledge of the Gospel but something about different types of people outside of the religion has always attracted me.
I've always wanted to be around different types of people that way.
And one great thing about the gospel is it attracts all kinds of different people, too.
However, when I served with these National Guard guys for three weeks at this Forward Observer School, it got me outside of Utah and got me thinking, "Wow, I just...
I really like being around different types of people.
So for five months, I served with focus and dedication and I volunteered to join a deployment to Iraq to do a prison security duty with a battalion side unit.
It wasn't an ideal deployment for me.
In my mind, I thought I wanted to be back in the infantry.
At some point in the five months, my cousin who had been a captain and had served in that capacity during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, reminded me that if I wanted to do it right, I should join the Marine Corps again.
I agreed with him.
In my mind, I was like, "Yeah, I really want to do that, but I don't see how that's even possible.”
At this point, I had signed up as a national guardsman.
I was in a contract.
I didn't want to give up a good job.
I just didn't see how that was even possible, but really that's what I wanted to do.
So eventually I asked my battalion commander with the 222nd Field Artillery Battalion, what the chances of me switching from the National Guard to become an active duty Marine again was.
He was my neighbor and had actually been an influence in me joining the National Guard.
After I asked him, he was actually frustrated with me.
And he said, "You know what?
I don't agree with you.
You should stay with our unit.
I think that's a terrible idea but the one thing that you can do to request a switch is write a letter to the commanding general of the Utah National Guard and if he gives you the okay then he overrides my choice.
I can't stop you if he gives the okay.
So I did it.
I wrote a letter to the commanding general of the Utah National Guard and I was shocked.
I got a letter back saying, "If you want to serve in the capacity of an active duty Marine, that is a much greater calling than you could possibly fulfill as a Utah National Guardsman.
I release you from your obligation.
However, if you fail at that, you still have the obligation to come back and fulfill your three years as a Utah National Guardsman.
So basically, I had to make it work in the Marines or I was going back to the National Guard but he was highly encouraging.
He says, "That's a great idea."
So it excited me but scared me at the same time.
So I met with two Marine recruiters and they were both battle-hardened infantry Marines who had fought in the battle for Fallujah and had seen a lot of death and destruction.
After one meeting, they both told me that I didn't belong in the Marines any longer as an enlisted man.
They told me that the enlisted Marines needed officers and leaders of my quality and put me in touch with the officer selection officer or the OSO, they call them in the Marine Corps.
That was an incredible compliment from two amazing Marines who saw in me what I didn't even see in myself.
I wanted to be a sergeant or an E-5 again but those two hard-ass sergeants who had seen their brothers die and had been wounded themselves wanted a person like me to lead them.
It brought chills to my spine and it brought tears to my eyes as it does now to even think that two Marines like that could see me and think, "We want you to lead Marines like us into combat."
That was just, unbelievable to me and I just thought, “I can't let these Marines down.
Like I need to do what they think I should do.”
So after speaking with the OSO, he informed me what I needed to do to be qualified to be a Marine Corps commissioned officer or a quote-unquote Mustang as Marines call them.
In three short months, which was when the next Officer Candidate School class started, I needed to finish my college degree, get in the best endurance shape of my life, still support and provide for my family, get a high score on the ASVAB test, and basically have the stars align.
There is also a lot of work required outside of all of that to be accepted as a candidate.
There's a lot of essays to write, a lot of requests to your congressman, I think your senator, there's a lot of paperwork to be done.
So in three and a half months, I could not possibly even imagine how I could even possibly succeed and accomplish what was required of me.
The two classes I needed to graduate were not being offered for a year at Southern Utah University but luckily they were offered by the same professor and he agreed to let me do home study and finish them in two months.
There were a few classes that typically weren't transferable from a junior college that I had attended and Southern Utah University heard my situation and they allowed them to actually be transferred in my case because of what I was attempting to do.
So, as far as the stars aligning, they did align, in fact.
As I shared my story with the people who were decision-makers on the requirements needed to ship off to Officer Candidate School in mid-September, they made the impossible possible.
The process was one of the greatest manifestations of miracles in my entire life.
However, I still needed to do my part.
For about three and a half months, I averaged about three to five hours of sleep a night as I drove and delivered packages for 10 to 12 hours a day, studied for two classes and the ASVAB, ran several miles four days a week on top of additional exercise, took care of my family, fulfilled the requirements for entry as an officer in the Marines, got our affairs in order to change our lives dramatically, and tried to sell a home.
By September 17th of 2007, God had provided a way for me to become a Mustang that had been impossible.
It was great preparation for what would become the next four years.