combat assault courses, the leadership reaction course and team-building warrior stations. When Jacquet did rest, he lay down on the damp ground, propping up his gear as a pillow. His wet, dirty cammies dripped down on him as they hung from the rafters above, perhaps only for a few minutes before it was time for the next test.
At the end of The Crucible, Jacquet couldn’t wait to stuff himself with breakfast. Exhausted and still carrying 45 pounds of gear, Alpha Company hiked back from the airfield to the parade deck.
The pale light from the rising sun bathed the filthy, sweaty recruits as they stood in formation. Each was handed the Eagle, Globe and Anchor — the emblem of the Marine Corps. Jacquet shook hands with his senior drill instructor, who told him he did well.
As Jacquet joined his classmates belting out the “Marines’ Hymn” in unison, he realized he no longer was a recruit. He was a Marine.
***
After boot camp, Jacquet spent the next several months in training to become a radio operator. At age 19, he received orders for his first deployment to the Garmsir district of Helmand, a very active warzone in south Afghanistan. Ortiz took her son’s deployment hard. On the day he left, she went for a tear-filled walk around Crumpton, Md. She passed a church along the way and glanced back at the reader board. Maybe a little religion could help soothe her heartache. It didn’t. “Well, that wasn’t helpful,” she thought as she continued on her way.
But then something compelled her to turn around and read the back of the sign. That’s where she found a message that stopped her in her tracks. It was Psalms 27:2-3. When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident. Ortiz read it to Jacquet over the phone that night. “That is my promise that I’m claiming for you,” she said.
***
It was Oct. 8, 2011, only a few weeks before Jacquet’s tour was over. He would be home for Thanksgiving. “I have news for you about your son,” the female voice said on the other end of the call. “He’s been severely injured.”
A roadside bomb
detonated underneath Jacquet’s vehicle in the middle of a
convoy Oct. 8, 2011 in Afghanistan.
The explosion left a
crater in the road, the vehicle incapacitated and Jacquet, the driver, shattered
virtually from head to toe.
Driving the third vehicle in a convoy of five, Jacquet, then a lance corporal, was among a group of Marines in Hotel Company that was headed to another base. Having swept the area and not finding anything unusual, the route clearance team relayed back that all was clear. Jacquet’s sergeant, Christopher Faiman, radioed ahead to the base that they would arrive in about five minutes. “That is the last thing I remember,” Faiman said. About a quarter of a mile after turning off the main road, a massive noise rang out from the middle of the pack. Someone
MUSTANG AND MARINE
Madi Lazorchak, a freshman defender for the Stevenson women’s lacrosse team, joined the Marine Corps reserves and
graduated Sept. 19 from boot camp in Parris Island, S.C.
42 LACROSSE MAGAZINE » November 2014
Lazorchak was front and center on the Marine Corps website and Twitter page in a photo taken during rifle marksmanship training. She’s the blonde highlighted in the image, which
should strike fear in the heart of her future lacrosse foes. She’ll play at Stevenson after leading Catonsville (Md.) High to the state championship game as a senior captain in 2014.
A Publication of US Lacrosse
©TWITTER; COURTESY OF ADAM JACQUET
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