Multiple Tours… “No one ever said it was easy”

Staff Sergeant [now SFC] MacArthur Ocampo was born in Southern California, but at the age of ten he moved to the Philippines to live with his rel­a­tives. Graduating from high school at age fif­teen (yes, fif­teen), he entered uni­ver­sity and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a minor in Computer Science. His goal… go on to law school and become a lawyer prac­tic­ing in his adopted coun­try of the Philippines.

The fol­low­ing arti­cle was writ­ten by LTC Jerry Hogan (USA, ret.) and has been re-published with his per­mis­sion. It is an arti­cle from 2009 that dis­cusses the path that lead AskTOP SME, SFC Mackie Ocampo to join the United States Army. The orig­i­nal arti­cle can be found on Mr. Hogan’s web­site, The Military View. The arti­cle has been refor­mat­ted for AskTOP.

But like many young men and women serv­ing today in our mil­i­tary ser­vices, his plans were changed. Coming back to the States in 2002 for a vaca­tion prior to enter­ing law school, he started real­iz­ing what was hap­pen­ing with his native coun­try, the USA, and the global war on ter­ror that was spread­ing through­out the world. As he said, “I dug into the patri­otic side of myself and dis­re­garded every­thing I had planned.”

2 BDE, 2 ID was the first unit to deploy directly from Korea to Iraq.

Enlisting in the US Army, it was first off to Fort Benning, Georgia, for Basic Training and then Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for Advanced Individual Training. From there, it was an imme­di­ate assign­ment to South Korea where he was at Camp Stanley in Uijonbu. But then in May of 2004, after only being in-country for six months, Staff Sergeant Ocampo vol­un­teered to deploy with the 2^nd Brigade of the 2^nd Infantry Division to Iraq. This was the first unit to be deployed directly from Korea to the on-going war in the Middle East. And they ended up in Iraq right in the mid­dle of that war as the unit was assigned to Camp Junction City in Ramadi which, at that time, was right in the heart of the Sunni tri­an­gle, the most vio­lent area in the country.

Ten months in Iraq and then a return to the States to Fort Carson, Colorado. Fourteen months later, it was back to Iraq to Forward Operating Base Loyalty. This time, since they were a part of the “surge” force, the stay in the war zone was for fif­teen months. The unit returned to Fort Carson on New Year’s Day, 2008. They are now prepar­ing to leave for Afghanistan this sum­mer, eigh­teen months after get­ting back to the States. On July 1, 1973, the US Army ended the Draft and went to an All Volunteer force. No longer do our young peo­ple get those notices in the mail say­ing, “Greeting from your local draft board.” Instead today, all per­son­nel in the mil­i­tary are there by their choice…they have all vol­un­teered to serve. During the early days of the All Volunteer force, many skep­tics pre­dicted it would fail and it would be nec­es­sary to revert back to the Draft to fill the ranks of the ser­vices. After twenty-six years, they have been proven totally and absolutely wrong!

I asked Staff Sergeant Ocampo what his thoughts were about this method of fill­ing the Army ranks. He was pretty clear:

“The word “vol­un­teer” speaks for itself. I truly believe that serv­ing your nation is the noblest job there is. Each Soldier has their own per­sonal rea­sons for join­ing the ser­vice, but regard­less of that rea­son, they each come in know­ing the dan­gers and sac­ri­fices that lie ahead of them, espe­cially since the Global War on Terrorism started. I truly believe that Soldiers of today are of the high­est cal­iber. I see it espe­cially in com­bat where each per­son is tak­ing care of one another. I see it in the moti­va­tion of Soldiers to com­plete their mis­sion with no per­sonal appre­hen­sions. I see it when Soldiers reen­list to sub­mit them­selves to more ser­vice to their coun­try. And most of all, I see it in each Soldier who has com­mit­ted to serve and defend-voluntarily-and will­ingly lose their life in the ser­vice of their coun­try and their fel­low man.”

For some­one think­ing about join­ing this All Volunteer force, I asked SSG Ocampo what he would tell them:

“I would first ask them the rea­son why and then give my per­sonal opin­ion based upon their answer. Generally I would thank them for think­ing about serv­ing and then talk a lit­tle about real­ity. I would tell them the mil­i­tary is just not a job; it’s a lifestyle that one must really be com­mit­ted to. Not every­one will be accus­tomed to the mil­i­tary once they enter, but with deep moti­va­tion, per­se­ver­ance, and train­ing, the trans­for­ma­tion from civil­ian to Soldier can be accom­plished with ease. I’d tell them about the great oppor­tu­ni­ties and ben­e­fits the Army has to offer. I’d tell them about the adven­tures of being in the Army and the places they may get to go. I’d be up front and hon­est and tell them about my bad expe­ri­ences as well as my good ones in the Army. I’d tell them that in the Army the mis­sion and tak­ing care of your peo­ple are the two pri­or­i­ties. I would also tell them about the sac­ri­fices one must make as they leave their fam­i­lies for con­stant deploy­ments to fight peo­ple who are intent on killing you and your bud­dies. I would tell them that you can’t be a part time Soldier; it is a 24 hour, 7 day a week job and way of life. And then finally I would say to them that if they are com­mit­ted to serv­ing their coun­try, there is no bet­ter place to do it, but they must be fully com­mit­ted before they enlist.”

Here is a young man who fin­ished high school at 15, quickly got his col­lege degree, and was headed for law school to start his life’s career. Then he acknowl­edged this War on Terror we are in and put aside his ambi­tions to serve his coun­try. Since being in the Army, he has been to Iraq twice for a total of 25 months, has served in Korea for 10 months, and is cur­rently on his way to Afghanistan for another 12 months of fight­ing our ene­mies. He has been in the Army only 72 months. Draw your own con­clu­sions on what our Soldiers are doing for each one of us!

Mackie has now been pur­su­ing his mil­i­tary career for eight years and has been writ­ing for AskTOP since April 2011. You can read his con­tri­bu­tions to the site by click­ing here: All posts by Mackie