Friends reunite overseas after three years
Hunter spent much of their first two years at Ole Miss side-by-side.
The friends lived in the same dorm their freshman and sophomore years and passed the time by attending a lot of backpacking and road trips together with friends from the Ole Miss ROTC.
http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/27/43395686c13d4
Ray Nothstine
September 27, 2005
Hunter spent much of their first two years at Ole Miss side-by-side.
The friends lived in the same dorm their freshman and sophomore years and passed the time by attending a lot of backpacking and road trips together with friends from the Ole Miss ROTC.
Then Hunter left Ole Miss in his sophomore year in favor of active duty in the Marine Corps.
Nothstine didn’t start his spring semester that year, either.
While Hunter completed two combat tours in Afghanistan as an active duty Marine, Nothstine was deployed to the Al-Anbar province of Iraq in early February 2005.
Nothstine joined the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, India Company for his deployment in Iraq. As a crew chief on an amphibious assault vehicle, which is used to carry and support the infantry in combat operations through the cities and towns of Al-Anbar Province, he was part of numerous combat operations.
Hunter deployed to Iraq in late August for his third military deployment but his first venture to Iraq. He, too, was attached to the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, India Company as an assault man. Nothstine knew Hunter was part of 3/6 but wasn’t sure if he was with the company that was coming to his camp in Iraq. When Hunter got off the trucks that brought him on the convoy to his new home for six months, he saw a sign that pointed west and said “Oxford: 6,723 miles.”
The old friends saw each other for the first time in three years at that Marine base camp in Al-Anbar Province, and they have been spending time together and encouraging each other through their deployment ever since.
“We are working hard at trying to bring lasting security to Iraq,