Photo By Chief Petty Officer Benjamin Dobbs | Chief Hospital Corpsman Samuel Sobrino, a recruiter assigned to NTAG Pittsburgh, is...... read more read more
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G.K. Nielson said, “Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard, then succeed on purpose.”
Chief Petty Officer Samuel Sobrino, the youngest of three children, grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His parents instilled in him the values of hard work and discipline, which enabled him to be the suc-cessful man he is today.
Sobrino flew to the United States from Bogotá, Colombia, in the belly of his pregnant mother Maria, and with his father Antonio in 1980. Both of his parents were biologists focused in cytogenetics.
“My parents were both well educated,” Sobrino said. “They wanted us to have a good education, and to better our lives, whether it was through education, or whether it was through just hard work. I re-member, they would come home late from work and then have to do the routine of making dinner and take care of me and my two siblings. I always I saw it. I saw that hard work firsthand from our parents just because they tried to give us everything.”
They settled in Brooklyn, New York, then later relocated to New Jersey where he would join the Navy shortly after graduating from Paramus Catholic High School in 2000.
However, it wasn’t smooth sailing getting there.
“At that point in my life, I was going downhill,” Sobrino said. “I was getting into the wrong crowd.”
A fateful phone call would eventually change his life.
“My brother got a phone call from a Navy recruiter,” Sobrino said. “When the recruiter called the house, he was looking for my brother Sergio, and I picked up the phone.”
It was during that phone conversation intended for his brother, that Sobrino became interested in joining the Navy himself. Motivated by the example set by his parents, Sobino knew it was time for him to do something impactful.
“I saw my parents work so hard, and saw what they did to really put us in a good spot,” said Sobrino. “They wanted to make a difference for us, I wanted to make a difference for for them too. I wanted to make them proud of who I was, because I wasn't in a good space at that moment. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd and I knew I needed something to change, so I joined the Navy.”
Sobrino entered the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman, a decision that would lead to him being a direct witness and a first responder to in one of the most difficult times in our nation’s history.
“I went to A school up in Great Lakes to be a Corpsman and got stationed down in Washington D.C.,” Sobrino said. “I was assigned to the branch medical clinic at the Navy Yard and I worked there for two years.”
His training was put to the ultimate test when he was among the first to respond to the Pentagon dur-ing the attacks on 9/11.
As a current Medical Officer Recruiter for Buffalo, New York and Erie, Pennsylvania, Sobrino traveled from New York to speak with the crew of the amphibious transport dock ship USS Somerset during the 21st Anniversary Observance of 9/11 at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
Sobrino draws on that experience and tries not to take anything for granted. Instead, he continues to let discipline and hard work guide him to success, on purpose.
| Date Taken: | 06.08.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 06.08.2023 15:58 |
| Story ID: | 446533 |
| Location: | PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, US |
| Web Views: | 381 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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