My journey this week takes me to a young college veteran who served overseas at Christmas. Tori Howard served in the United States Marine Corps, enlisting immediately after high school graduation in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and served our country from June 2013 to June 2018. She deployed twice to Djibouti, headquarters for Operation Enduring Freedom, Horn of Africa, where she served with the U.S. Marine assault-support MV-22 Osprey aircraft detachment.
Howard comes from a career military family — her grandfather retired after 22 years with the U.S. Marine Corps. She shared that he met and married her grandmother while stationed in Japan after joining the service in 1956. He was severely wounded in Vietnam. Her grandmother waited 20 years before disclosing to her husband that as a 9-year-old child, she survived the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Their son and Howard’s father made a career in the U.S. Air Force, and while stationed in Germany, Howard was born. Is it any wonder she always wanted to join the service?
I asked Howard to share her spiritual journey while in the Marines. Looking back, she said that during her basic and advance training, she went to chapel every Sunday.
