In your face
(Special to the Times - Donovan Quintero)
Staff Sgt. Dean Begaye, a U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor, gets close to his recruits during rifle drill training May 3 in San Diego, Calif.
Diné drill instructor turns civilians into Marines
By Noel Lyn Smith
Navajo Times
WINDOW ROCK, May 19, 2011
"Black Friday" is when recruits meet their permanent drill instructors, their company commanders and other officers, and begin their training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.
"I always wanted to be a drill instructor," Begaye said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
The appeal, he said, is that boot camp is a recruit's first real introduction to life as a Marine.
Begaye, who is from Houck Chapter, may help train to 100 recruits at a time during the 13-week session. Not a moment goes by where recruits are not accompanied by a drill instructor, he said.
In order for recruits to graduate, they have to complete the three phases of boot camp.
The first phase is having the recruit make the passage from "civilian" to "recruit" by learning discipline, cutting ties with civilian habits, and learning Corps language and terminology.
The second phase focuses on field training, including learning how to fire a weapon and combat techniques.
The third phase involves testing the recruits' skills and knowledge.
Begaye said his current platoon of 40 recruits is close to finishing their final test, The Crucible, which represents the culmination of all the skills and knowledge a Marine should possess.
If successful, they will graduate June 3.
"It's stressful but at the same time you have to have patience with them," said Begaye.
He is Honágháahnii (One Walks Around Clan), born for Tódích'íi'nii (Bitter Water Clan). His chei is Kinlichíi'nii (Red House Clan) and his nálí is Táchii'nii (Red Running into Water Clan).
In addition to training recruits, Begaye helps with exercises like the May 2-6 "Marine mini-camp" that 40 counselors and educators from across the nation participated in at the base.
Before he became a DI about 18 months ago, he completed a tour in Afghanistan and two tours in Iraq. He earned a Purple Heart after being injured when his Humvee ran over an improvised explosive device outside Fallujah, Iraq, in 2005.
At the time of the incident, Begaye was trying to help fellow Marines whose vehicle had broken down.
"I was there for my brothers, my Marine brothers," he said.
His father, Reginald Begaye, also is a Purple Heart recipient. He earned his medal in Vietnam, where he served in an Army medical unit. Begaye also has an uncle who fought in the Korean War and cousins who have served in the military.
"The military has always been in my family," he said.
In a telephone interview Monday, Catherine Begaye, Dean's sister, remembered how her brother's first class of recruits looked at him with so much respect during their graduation ceremony.
"You could see the pride they have in him," she said.
When her brother joined the Marines at 20, it came as no surprise to the family. Dean was born to be a Marine, Catherine said.
"If you could have seen him as a kid, everything he had was camouflage," she said.
After all, she joked, being a Marine gives Dean the brothers he never had.
Catherine, Dean and their sister, Miranda, grew up in Flagstaff while their mother, Maggie Murphy, attended Northern Arizona University.
Since they lived in family housing on campus, education was the talk of their neighborhood. Catherine is now a lawyer but Dean always wanted to be a Marine.
With close to 10 years of military service behind him, Begaye said he is looking at studying for a bachelor's degree while continuing in the service.
"Killing two birds out of one stone," he said.