Illinois native keeps battalion firing despite hardships
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (June 8, 2007) -- Being a small arms repair technician or armorer consists of working in a building that houses thousands of dollars worth of weaponry that has to be accounted for to ensure the safety of fellow coalition forces.
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June 8, 2007; Submitted on: 06/08/2007 02:42:16 AM ; Story ID#: 20076824216
By Cpl. Wayne Edmiston, 2nd Marine Logistics Group
Tack on to that responsibility the pressure of being thousands of miles from home, managing a marriage and finding out your mother passed away after being considered perfectly healthy the day before.
Many servicemembers have their story, but this life is Cpl. Casey L. Schultz’s, a small arms repair technician with Combat Logistics Battalion 6, 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward).
After graduating Harlem Senior High School she was well on her way into the job market.
“I used to have a job making the same as a (gunnery sergeant),” the Loves Park, Ill., native joked. “I worked for a boss I really didn’t like and wanted to see the world.”
Aside from that, she said the 18 to 20 hour days working at Cutco Knives in Chicago as an assistant district manager made her realize it was time for a career change.
“I always wanted to go to Japan,” Schultz continued. “I figured the Marine Corps could get me there.”
Schultz originally wanted to be a tanker, which the Marine Corps does not offer to females. She said she figured being around weapons was a fair trade.
She attended the Small Arms Repair Technician’s course at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md., and fell in love with fixing weapons. On her dream sheet, which is your preferences for duty station, she put Japan as her first choice.
When orders came back around, it seemed the Corps needed her elsewhere.
“I got orders to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina,” Schultz said. “Completely opposite from what I wanted.”
She was assigned to 2nd Military Police Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, a unit which no longer exists.
Although Schultz didn’t get the assignment she hoped, Camp Lejeune turned out to be the right place for her. It was there that she fell for a military policeman. She was soon married her husband George, an Iraq War veteran on his way out of the Marine Corps.
It was not long before it became her time to serve in Iraq. At the beginning of this year, she deployed.
“It’s good having a husband who was in the Marines and had been over here,” she explained. “I could ask him questions.”
Her husband, who is now a locksmith in Jacksonville, N.C., is active with the Key Volunteers, a support organization made up of spouses and family of service members. With the Marine Corps being predominantly male, the organization formerly named “Key Wives” was renamed because of people like Schultz.
“His friends still in the Marines make fun of him,” Schultz said with a smile.
She finally arrived and got the hang of things in the desert when her husband contacted her with saddening news.
“My mother passed away in her sleep,” she said. “It was a total surprise, she was perfectly healthy.”
Shultz explained a complication with pain medication and an enlarged heart led to her mother’s death.
“I went home to attend the funeral and there I found out I was the responsible woman in the family,” she explained. “I had to make decisions that I never thought I would make until I was older.”
One decision she stuck with was her commitment to her fellow Marines and two weeks later returned to Iraq.
It was not long before she went off the camp as part of a female search team. These women are responsible for searching Iraqi women at checkpoints, something male Marines cannot perform because of the sensitivity of the country’s culture.
“It’s cool to get out there and see the Iraqi people,” Schultz said. “Iraqi women are so nice and often misunderstood.”
After her assignment with the search teams, she returned to her usual job at the armory. Now she is a familiar face. Armorers know everyone in the unit just because of the nature of their job.
She has a list on her office wall that is adorned with weapons information and everything there is to know about them, including the price. Next to that is a wall locker scattered with photographs of her husband.
“I see and know everyone in CLB-6,” she explained.
She pretty much summed up her daily life in two words.
“Accountability and serviceability,” she said. “That is my life. Making sure I know where every weapon in the battalion is and making sure everyone’s weapon works.”