Two young women from Brownsville and one from Harlingen will be members of the first platoon of 60 female U.S. Marine Corps recruits to undergo boot camp at the legendary Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego in San Diego, Calif.
“They told us in December, it was a Christmas surprise,” Kristina Gomez, 26, one of the two Brownsville recruits, said Wednesday at the Marine Corps recruiting center in Brownsville. The three met during the enlistment process. “We all had different shipping dates and there was word they had cleared San Diego for girls, but I never thought we would all go at the same time,” she said
“We ship out the 25th, meaning we have to be in San Antonio to get on the plane and fly to San Diego. After that we quarantine for two weeks, and then we start boot camp for 13 weeks.”
Gomez, Rosie Gutierrez, 21, of Brownsville, and Raymie Auldridge, 21, of Harlingen are going to San Diego together and making history. Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in Parris Island, South Carolina, has always trained both male and female Marine recruits. This will be the first time its counterpart in San Diego does the same.
All three recruits come from families who have served in the military or policing professions. Gomez said her father is a Marine “and just seeing his pride in his service made me want to serve.”
“I always thought about the military and had always been athletic and into sports. I always try to challenge myself to be physically fit,” she said, adding that the pride with which Marines carry themselves also attracted her.
All three girls are athletic and excelled at sports in high school. Gomez impressed Staff Sgt. Ceasar (CQ) Villalobos, a Brownsville Marine recruiter, by reeling off five pull-ups during a workout when most females are hard-pressed to do one.
Gutierrez said the enlistment process took her a little longer because of the wait to heal from lasik eye surgery. She tried to enlist in December 2019 but wasn’t able to start the process until June 2020.
Auldridge said her grandfather and brother were in the Army, and she looked up to them and their pride and confidence.
“Being a Marine is very physical, more than the other branches, so I knew, plus the dress blues look really nice, and on a girl they look even more powerful,” she said.
The three said the shock of going from civilian to boot camp life scares them a little, just like adjusting to lights out a 9 p.m., waking up at 4 a.m. and “sleeping with one eye open” for fire watch. Marine food compared to home-cooked meals is also a concern.
When asked what they most look forward to, the three replied, practically in unison, “receiving the eagle globe and anchor after the crucible.”
Villalobos explained that they were referring to the ceremony after the grueling run up the final hill, dubbed “the (grim) reaper” near the end of boot camp, after which recruits receive the emblem and are referred to as Marines for the first time. The hill is pitched at nearly 45 degrees, he said.
“It’s the culmination of going from civilian to Marine,” another recruiter, Staff Sgt. Daniel Garcia of San Antonio, said.
