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Back on top after nine years Cpl. Jason A. Collier Staff Writer The Chevron Dec 20, 1996 On graduation day, parents sit in the bleachers starting into the faces of the new Marines and listen to tales of the three-month long, arduous journey to become a Marine. For on Marine, that three-month journey started nine years ago when he first arrived aboard the Depot.
He has finally reached the goal.
  For LCpl. Kevin A. Phillips, a 27-year-old Olympia, Wash., native, his journey has not been an easy one, but he said it was worth it. “I enlisted back in ’87 as a reservist,” said LCpl. Phillips. “But on training day seventeen, I was dropped from the platoon for dehydration and mononucleosis.” As he packed his bags and left the platoon, his future as the guide and, more importantly, as a Marine, was uncertain. After a short stay in the hospital as well as Medical Rehabilitation Platoon, LCpl. Phillips was given the option of whether or not to stay aboard the Depot due to his college term starting. “I left the depot and went back to college,” he said. “When I look back on it, I don’t regret my decision to leave. I feel that I have a better sense of accomplishment now.” Lance Corporal Phillips went back to college, became a certified Dive Master, Certified Nursing Assistant, an Emergency Medical Technician, and held several managerial jobs in the state of Washington. In February, LCpl. Phillips lost his job with the state of Washington, forcing him to look at his accomplishments and toward the future. “I joined the Marine Corps nine years ago to accomplish something that I could be proud of,” he said. With those dreams of accomplishment running through his mind, LCpl. Phillips turned to Sgt. Joe Carter, a Marine Corps recruiter at Recruiting Station Olympia, Wash. “When I first met Phillips, he was bumming around doing nothing,” said Sgt Carter. “He dropped out of boot camp in ’87 and had been working and going to school off an on.” “When he decided he wanted to enlist again, it took a lot of work for us to get him processed and approved,” said Sgt. Carter. “It also took a lot of work from him. We needed him to get some more college done.” “When he left here he was as motivated as I had seen anyone,” said Sgt. Carter. “He said he was going to become his platoon’s honorman, but you hear that all the time. He was really dedicated, and it paid off.” “He definitely stands out, he is a lot more mature than the other recruits,” said Senior Drill Instructor GySgt Ronnie M. Barrett. “It takes someone with a lot of dedication to want to come back. He came back with goal set, and he achieved them. That’s what impressed me.”  “Once I got to the top of the Reaper, it finally hit me that I’ve done something that no one else had done,” said LCpl. Phillips. “I made it through the Crucible. I am going to graduate as a company honorman and lance corporal.” Lance Corporal Phillips said advise his mom gave him help to him achieve the title of company honorman. “My mom told me, ‘Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve’,” he said. “That was my whole attitude, that’s what I believed in my heart, and I wasn’t going to let anything stand in the way of my dream. “I am convince that life is 10 percent of what happens to you, and 90 percent of how you react to it,” said LCpl Phillips. “Boot camp and the Crucible were difficult. The thing that kept me going was my dream.” He explained the differences between his dreams and wishes. “A wish is a thought not put into action,” said LCpl Phillips. Lance Corporal Phillips said the graduation today will not only be moving because he is graduation as a Marine, but that he will see his farther for the first time in 24 years. “I am looking forward to seeing my Dad, and the rest of my family that I haven’t seen for a while,” said LCpl. Phillips. “I am also going to ask my girlfriend to marry me today.” There was no doubt in LCpl Phillips’ mind about what he wanted to accomplish in his return to the Depot. “Becoming a Marine is something to be proud of,” said LCpl. Phillips. “I came to recruit training to become the platoon guide, graduate as company honorman and most importantly, to become a Marine – and I did.” 
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