Dewayne Thomas was born and raised in Indianapolis Indiana on the East side of town. When Dewayne was in his mid-twenties, he was running the streets and doing the wrong things. The street life was beginning to take a toll on him as he seen some of his close friends being shot and some killed. Dewayne evaluated himself and knew he was heading down a road that leads to destruction and felt he needed some discipline in his life. The opportunity to gain discipline would come as Dewayne was attending a basketball tournament in Muncie Indiana, there were Marine recruiters there. Dewayne had heard that the Marines were a very disciplined military unit known as the Few, the Proud, the Marines.

The Marine recruiters took notice of Dewayne and begin to talk to him. Dewayne told the recruiters he was 26 years old and to old to join the Marines but the Marine recruiters assured Dewayne he was not too old and the cutoff age was 32. It didn’t take long for the Marine recruiters to motivate and persuade Dewayne to join the Marines. It was December 26^th, 1999 when Dewayne shipped out for Marine Corp Bootcamp, MCRD, San Diego, California, to begin his journey to become a United States Marine. When Bootcamp begin, Dewayne was standing tall at 6ft 4 inches and weighing 240 pounds. Dewayne’s Drill Instructors quickly took notice of him and his Senior Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Vann locked in on him and approached him saying I see you a big cornbread eating country boy.

Staff Sergeant Vann tells recruit Thomas, you are going to be one of my diet recruits and I am going to trim you down some pounds and tone you up, by the time I get done with you, your going be a lean, mean, Marine fighting machine. Staff Sergeant Vann tells recruit Thomas, I bet if me and you were back on the streets, you would try to take me out recruit Thomas wouldn’t you, recruit Thomas response was “sir no sir,” Staff Sergeant Vann responded “you lying recruit.” Recruit Thomas went on to become one of the Drill Instructors favorite recruits.

During pugil stick fighting, Dewayne Drill Instructors would put him up against other recruits from different platoons that were similar in size to him and Dewayne would destroy them. After three months of rigorous training, graduation day came and Dewayne received the discipline he needed and earned the title “U.S. Marine.” After a well-deserved 10 day leave period at home in Indianapolis Indiana, Dewayne went on to his military occupational school 1142, Electrical Engineer at Courthouse Bay, Jacksonville North Carolina. Dewayne completed school in two and a half months and received his orders for his permanent duty station at Camp Lejeune North Carolina.

During his stint in the Marine Corp, Dewayne served two combat tours in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, but it was his second combat tour in Iraq 2005, where he saw most of his combat action when his unit was attached to a Marine Infantry Company. Dewayne unit’s mission was to clear Iraq insurgents from buildings in house to house fighting which is known as “Urban Warfare” where fighting takes place in towns and cities. One of the difficulties and complicating factors in urban warfare is the presence of civilians. In some circumstances you have just seconds to determine who is a civilian or enemy which can be a life or death situation.

On one mission Dewayne recalls he was the lead team member who kicked in the front door of a house, when he entered the room, he came face to face with an Iraq insurgent with an AK-47 assault rifle pointing at him. Dewayne stated that he and the Iraq insurgent both froze with their rifles pointing at each other. The second member in Dewayne’s team entered the room and butt stroked the insurgent in the head with his rifle, knocking him out cold. To this day Dewayne do not know why he or the insurgent froze but he believes it was a divine intervention that both of their lives were spared and it was not their time to leave this earth.

Marine units traveling in their four-wheel vehicles Humvee’s faced a constant threat from IED’S (Improvised Explosive Devices). Dewayne recalls one mission when his unit was called for an IED vehicle flipper. A Marine Humvee had hit an IED and there were known insurgents in the area. When Dewayne’s unit arrived on the scene, the Humvee was flipped over and engulfed in flames, there was one Marine still trapped inside screaming but no one was able to save him due to the intense fire and ammunition in the vehicle going off. Dewayne described it as a very sad moment as one of their comrades perished in that vehicle.

Dewayne’s unit would sometimes execute dangerous night missions when they received intel of insurgent locations. The unit would move out at night with their Humvee’s in tactical formation completely blacked out where the Marines would strictly only use their night vision goggles. Each Marine would carry with them zip ties and handcuffs as they would sometimes capture many Iraq prisoners.

During down time, one of the activities Dewayne’s unit would do as a morale booster would be play flag football. After Dewayne’s second combat tour in Iraq, he had considered reenlisting but his wife who he has a daughter with was diagnosed with brain cancer in which sadly she succumbed to. Dewayne Thomas was honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corp in June of 2008. That much needed discipline to turn his life around, he received in the Marines.

Dewayne stated that his greatest memories of the Marine Corp was the camaraderie he had with his Marine brothers. If I had to do it again, I would do it without a second thought.

Dewayne resides in Brownsburg Indiana and is happily married with two teenage sons. In his free time, he enjoys riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle and sometimes takes his Harley on long road trips with his buddies.

Dewayne unit before going on a patrol                 Dewayne unit after a combat mission                  Dewayne with two of his close Marine Brothers   Iraq interpreter assigned to Dewayne’s unit