Photo By Staff Sgt. Gavriel Fleischman | Gunnery Sgt. Raymond Diaz, the Comptroller chief for U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe...... read more read more
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STUTTGART, Germany -- The Marine Corps is known to breed strong, resilient warriors to face enemies and dangers unimagined to the citizens they protect. But for a lot of Marines, this strength comes not from recruit training but from the family, brothers and sisters-in-arms, and chain-of-command of the individual Marine.
Gunnery Sgt. Raymond Diaz, the Comptroller chief for U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa, drew strength from these exact sources while serving and in his personal life.
For Diaz, the Marine Corps was his ticket out of the small, country town of Brawley, Calif.
“The recruiter nailed it. He marched into my economics class; he was loud, told us only 1% could claim the title of ‘U.S. Marine.’ He told us he was looking for a special kind of individual, the opportunities to travel, for education; I knew it was the place for me,” said Diaz.
Diaz married his high-school sweetheart and started a career that took him from Southern California to Hawaii, leading to recruiting duty in Austin, Texas. Along with the responsibilities and duties of being a Marine, recruiting duty proved to have its challenges which lead to stress, poor diet habits and lack of exercise.
“I was on a steady diet of two energy drinks for breakfast, fast food for lunch and would occasionally grab a quick dinner,” said Diaz. “I was constantly tired and lethargic and I attributed it to my daily routine.”
“As Marines, we are taught to push through the pain to accomplish the mission; that it wasn’t that bad, and I thought it would go away as soon as I transferred to my next duty station,” Diaz said. “My health and my marriage were being deprived but my wife kept life together at home and I kept fighting to accomplish the mission at work.”
Upon completing his recruiting tour, Diaz was transferred to Camp Pendleton, where a physical health assessment was performed as a standard check-in procedure. The blood work caused concern enough to refer him to a specialist and eventually a couple trips to the emergency room where a stomach scan revealed a five-inch tumor in his colon.
“There was a history of cancer in my family but at 30-years-old, my mother had not told me the details,” said Diaz.
The medical tests provided evidence the cancer was spreading and immediate attention was needed. He was scheduled for immediate surgery.
As he readied for surgery, he and his wife were joined by his parents and the doctor began the pre-surgery checklist which would reveal new surprises to the situation. The group answered question after question without hesitation but when his wife was asked if she was pregnant, the delayed response was enough to confirm she was in fact carrying their first child.
“So that is how my parents found out we were pregnant, with me laying on a gurney about to go into a lifesaving surgery and my wife pregnant,” said Diaz. “I told my mom and dad we were planning on surprising them; we were just not intending this to be the way. Never have we cried tears of happiness and sadness.”
The road-to-recovery after cancer is never an easy one, but with his wife and new child, Diaz found a new mission; to fight for them. This was his bedrock when he was given the decision of medical retirement or chemo-therapy using an experimental drug that had the potential for a full recovery.
Diaz said it was the hardest decision of his life, but his wife reminded him how important it is that their child had two healthy parents.
“She was my strength. Even after we decided to go ahead, things got tough,” said Diaz.
His recovery was full of complications; a weakened immune system made minor infections grave threats to his life, and allergic reactions and medications meant multiple returns to the hospital.
“I wanted to quit.” Diaz told his wife, “I can’t do this anymore; I am down. At that point, she took my hand and put it on her belly. I felt our child move and I knew there was a higher reason for me to continue to fight. I found the strength to fight on.”
The second factor in Diaz’s life was important lessons he has learned through the Corps and the support of his fellow Marines and his chain-of-command.
“Just as we learn in the Marine Corps, we are always capable of doing more than we think possible; of pushing on.”
Diaz fought until the cancer was in complete remission. Diaz returned to full-duty as the father of a new baby and a rejuvenated and reinforced love for the Corps.
His wife and child were his reason to fight and gave him the courage to live; the Corps was his reminder of his higher calling, not just as a Marine, but as a husband and a father.
“I always want to be known as the guy that can ‘pick up the log’ and be a contributing factor,” said Diaz.
As he is stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, Diaz is reminded of ancient gladiators while visiting the Coliseum in Rome.
“To walk in the footsteps where gladiators walked to battle other gladiators and wild beast, it was amazing.”
Some would look at Diaz as a ‘gladiator’ himself, facing the odds against a foe many times more menacing than wild beast or man.
Diaz is back in a full-duty status and having passed the annual training requirements set by the Marine Corps, he was recently promoted to gunnery sergeant retroactively. His son is now three-years-old and his cancer is in complete remission.
| Date Taken: | 01.03.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 01.03.2014 08:31 |
| Story ID: | 118790 |
| Location: | STUTTGART, BADEN-WURTTEMBERG, DE |
| Hometown: | STUTTGART, BADEN-WURTTEMBERG, DE |
| Hometown: | BRAWLEY, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 492 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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