Lance Corporal Bill Skolnik

Smithtown, NY

I was a young 17 year old in 1971. For many different reasons I decided to leave high school in my senior year and join the Marines. I remember coming out of class at the end of the day in the late sixties and watching the hippies protest in front of the Marine Corps Recruit "cubicle" at the corner of town hall and the High school. A couple of friends and I were disgusted with the abuse that the recruiter was taking and we decided to do something about it. We went to the local deli and tried to buy all of the eggs that they had. The owner was an Italian immigrant who came to the US after WW2. He was a no nonsense kind of guy, and he did not want to sell us the eggs. He said, WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ALL THESE EGGS? GO BACK TO SCHOOL!!! We told him that we were going to throw them at the hippies who were harassing the Marine recruiter across the street from his store. He looked at us and tears started running down his face and he said to us...you take all my eggs for free! God bless America! Soon after that day I joined the Marine Corps with my two buddies. None of us saw combat, but we each had the Corps instilled deep inside of us. I left the Corps and a couple of years later joined USAF Pararescue. I was the first Marine to ever make it through the Pararescue pipeline. Everything I do, every thought I have, every decision I make, I make as a Marine first. There have been times where this has caused problems for me, because the vast majority of the population doesn't understand what it's like to be a Marine. But 99.9% of the time, being a Marine has served me extremely well. Semper Fi Lcpl Skolnik USMC AIC Skolnik USAF Pararescue