The Marines have arrived

By Thomas Nelson, tnelson@charlescitypress.com

There are three Marines from the Des Moines recruiting office riding RAGBRAI, a corporal, a staff sergeant and a sergeant major.

“It’s good opportunity to get out in the community and really be a part of the community,” said Cpl. Levi Schulte, one the three. “A lot of the time we get focused on doing our job, but we’re also part of the community that we live in.”

Schulte and the other Marines got encouragement from other Marine recruiters in the towns they passed through.

“We become very close with the local communities that we go into,” Schulte said. “It’s nice to get there when we can and represent what the Marine Corps is and what we stand for.”

In the past the Marines have had a larger number of people riding, Schulte said.

Representing the core values of honor, courage and commitment are important to Schulte and Marines everywhere and showing that is a vital part of community engagement.

“The Air Force is out there, our brothers, they’re out here representing their force,” Schulte said. “We’re out here representing what we can as a small force.”

The Marine Corps uses 2 percent of the national defense budget, and is historically a smaller force compared to the Army, Navy and Air Force.

There isn’t a Marine recruiting office in Charles City and having appearances by Marines like Schulte helps increase the service’s visibility.

Marine bases are primarily on the coasts with Camp Pendleton on the Pacific Ocean and on the other side of the county Camp LeJeune is located in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on the Atlantic Ocean.

“The guys here in the Midwest don’t have the opportunity to really see a whole battalion of Marines march through their town on the Fourth of July,” Schulte said. “We love to come out and do what we do best, which is PT (physical training).”

The Marines usually head out around 6 a.m. Their sergeant major, Michael A. Cayer, wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to do an inspection of the bicycles before they head out for the day.