Herdon, VA -- Pfcs. Kyle Snoich and Claire Drew, U.S. Marines from Sterling, Virginia, returned home to share their experiences as recent graduates of Marine Corps recruit training with students of Herndon High School May 19, 2015, in Leesburg, Virginia.
Both Marines were back in town to participate in the recruiter assistance program at Recruiting Sub-station Leesburg. Under the supervision of Sgt. Michael A. DeCamilla Jr., recruiter for RSS Leesburg, they helped put multiple classes of students through a series of physically demanding exercises.
The training session was part of the Glazier Football Clinic Program. The program offers coaches access to Marine Corps designed training that will build mental and physical toughness in their team. It also includes a leadership presentation that challenges athletes to become better citizens and more effective leaders within their teams and communities.
“I believe this experience shows the students another side of the Marine Corps,” said DeCamilla. “It shows them they have the ability to push themselves and not allow someone to let them fail.”
The Marines put the students, ranging from sophomores to seniors, through various exercises such as relay races, ammunition can lifts, and squad pushups.
“My career up to this point has just been me being told what to do and how to do it,” said Snoich who was in the Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program for 10 months and graduated recruit training Dec. 8, 2014. “Now, it feels weird being the one to explain things I’ve done and telling them to push harder.”
Throughout the day the Marines worked to motivate the students, get them excited and make them exceed their expectations.
“It’s fun to get this chance to push them because I never got to in bootcamp,” said Drew who was in the DEP for two months and graduated recruit training May 15, 2015. “It’s exciting, but it’s also uneasy because you don’t know how far to push them. When I see them giving up, it makes me want to scream in their face and tell them to get going because that’s what I went through for the past three months, and I know I was pushing myself harder than them.”
After each session, the Marines took time to talk to the young men and women and congratulate those who worked the hardest.
“(Snoich and Drew) being out here is going to help them in the long run, especially if they decide to stay in the Marine Corps,” said DeCamilla from Rochester, New York. “It’s going to refine their leadership skills and show them, now, what they need to get better at. It will get them out of their comfort zone.”
Snoich will be attending a military occupational specialty school to be an airframes mechanic, and Drew will attend MOS school to be a communications specialist in the near future.