CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Though Cpl. Hector Garcia is a non-commissioned officer who has never deployed to combat, it would be hard to guess it from his extreme levels of motivation, intensity, and excitability, all of which are more typical of a senior staff non-commissioned officer (SNCO) who has never deployed to combat.
That is because every day, Garcia chooses to go the extra mile in personally exemplifying the many eccentricities he wrongly believes characterize Marines who have been to war.
It begins when he steps into his car, the back of which is plastered with bumper stickers from Sgt Grit's, a store dedicated to apparel, t-shirts, stickers, and hats for Marines.
"I like Sgt Grit's, but that kid has made me hate those goddamn bumper stickers," says the SNCO of Garcia's section, Staff Sgt. Michael Branch, who was on his first combat deployment when Garcia was 13-years-old. "He actually turned one of them into his email signature, then attributed it to himself as a quote. 'Heaven doesn't want us, and hell's afraid we'll take over, -Corporal Hector Garcia.' It's so fucking asinine that sometimes I can't tell him from my fellow SNCOs."
