Photo By Cpl. Dallas Johnson | Sgt. Michael Peers, a firepower control team chief with 4th Air Naval Gunfire Liaison...... read more read more
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For the majority of people across the country, the standard progression to adulthood is going to school, then college, then bouncing around from job to job with the hope of one day finding a position where you can retire at 20 years. For some, though, going to college is the stepping stone into realizing they want to do something different. Something more adventurous.
For Sgt. Michael Peers, a firepower control team chief with 4th Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, Force Headquarters Group, attending college is where he realized he wanted to take that more adventurous step. He wanted to be a U.S. Marine.
“I was studying physics in college,” Peers recounts. “As interesting as it was, there was something else out there. One day I checked to see if I could join the Marine Corps, no real reason why. I just went and spoke to a recruiter and then the next day I woke up and I was in boot camp. I wanted to travel the world, see different things and be in different places. And, here I am, in Scotland, working with different nations.”
A native of Detroit, Michigan, and resident of Orlando, Florida, Peers is currently attending Joint Warrior 18-1 in Durness, Scotland, April 18-May 2, 2018. When he's not performing his military obligations, Peers works as a sheriff with the Orange County sheriffs office.
Reserve Marines, like Peers, spend a minimum of two consecutive weeks each year furthering their skills at annual training exercises across the globe. This year, he and his West Palm Beach, Florida, based 4th ANGLICO company are taking advantage of Scotland's cold and rugged terrain to test their mettle in an environment completely opposite of their own.
“This exercise has been very good,” said Peers. “I think, overall, it's hard to get a training exercise where you get so many different nations working together to complete one task. It's a lot of liaison that has to be done. With ANGLICO, and that being an acronym in and of itself, thats something that we don't get to do as much. It's part of our mission statement to be able to work with joint and national coalition partners and thats something we've been able to do here better than we've been able to do in the past.”
Like many fellow Reserve Marines, Peers has utilized the skills he learned in the military as a way to better himself in his position as a sheriff.
“As a cop, we have to talk to a lot of different types of people all the time and see things how they see them,” said Peers. “It's really the biggest part of the job, knowing how to talk to people regardless of how much you have in common with them. That has definitely helped me, and with this exercise, and as a Marine and cop, theres a lot of tactics that go into it that are the same. If anything, I've learned how to talk to different people from different countries and how to cooperate with them and achieve the same goal.”
As a staff sergeant select, Peers will be attending the Terminal Attack Control Party course in order to be a joint terminal attack controller, giving him the authority to call in air strikes on future operations; as well as mentoring his junior Marines.
“Everyday there's an opportunity working with these guys to train them, especially the guys who are hungry,” said Peers. “Sometimes guys lose motivation and lose sight of why they did this. They're just kind of in it until it's over. But I think everyone has a reason why they're here, a reason why they're doing it and a reason why they raised their hand and signed that dotted line in the first place. I've continued, and plan on continuing, to help them seek that back out of themselves again.”
| Date Taken: | 05.01.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 05.04.2018 10:54 |
| Story ID: | 275284 |
| Location: | DURNESS, SCOTLAND, GB |
| Web Views: | 187 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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