COLUMBIA BASIN — As young men enlisting into the U.S. Marine Corps, they served their country, developing military discipline and fighting the nation’s battles while their countrymen back home enjoyed peace within America’s borders.

Today, many veterans of the Marines, an organization older than even the Declaration of Independence and which celebrated its 245th birthday Tuesday, still serve their communities in the Columbia Basin through law enforcement, fire fighting, education, elected office, or as volunteers.

Dr. Kenneth “Chris” Hurst Sr., today the superintendent of the Othello School District, had always dreamed of following in the footsteps of his father, who served in the U.S. Army for three decades. He had enrolled into Georgia Military College, hoping to serve the army as an officer.

But then he went to his younger brother’s graduation ceremony for the Marine Corps boot camp, he said.

“My brother, I wouldn’t say he got in trouble a lot, but he was a rowdy personality,” Hurst said, chuckling. “But I remember when he finished graduating, and he was talking to our dad and the rest of our family members, and he was full of discipline and character. It was a totally different person than I had known growing up.”

If any organization had been able to instill that kind of discipline into his brother, it was the type of organization that Hurst wanted to be a part of, he said. He joined the Marines in 1982 and served for 11 years – though, Hurst is quick to add: once a Marine, always a Marine.

“Esprit de corps,” Hurst said. “It really means the ‘spirit of the corps.’ You work with these people from different parts of the country, and you come together and are working together to accomplish a common mission.”

The transition from the armed forces into public education wasn’t a large leap for Hurst, who was a drill sergeant with the Marines and a Sunday school teacher with a knack for mathematics. After going back to college, he became a math teacher in California, where he taught for a time before becoming first an assistant principal, then a principal, then an assistant superintendent.

With family living in the Yakima area, Hurst made his way from South Carolina to Washington, where he would soon become the Othello School District superintendent, a role which he has been in for more than four years.

While Hurst worked his way into public education, many other Marine Corps veterans find work in law enforcement, including Juan Loera, who served with the Moses Lake Police Department for nearly three decades and now teaches criminal justice at the Wenatchee Valley Technical Skills Center.

Like Hurst, Loera felt compelled to join the Marines after seeing the effect that service had on another young man. Growing up in Warden, an older high school friend whom Loera looked up to enlisted.

“When he came back from the Marine Corps, I was very impressed by his demeanor, how he carried himself, just his overall character,” Loera said. “The following year, when I got to be 17 years old, I asked my dad if I could join.”

Joining boot camp in 1982, Loera then went to infantry training at Camp Pendleton in California, joining the Military Occupational Specialty 0311 as an infantry rifleman. Before he left the Marines in 1986, he helped run base security at Naval Air Station Cecil Field in Jacksonville, Florida.

Right out of the Marine Corps, Loera joined the U.S. Army Reserve as a drill sergeant, which, much as was the case for Hurst, seemed to help prepare Loera to later become a teacher.

“Being a drill sergeant, you’re training young soldiers,” Loera said. “When you have a passion for training the next generation of soldiers who are going to defend the country, it’s a real satisfaction to know that you did it right.”

A few years later after enlisting with the reserve, Loera joined the Moses Lake Police Department. By the time he left both positions, nearly at the same time three decades later, he was a command sergeant major with the army and a corporal with the police department.

While both Loera and Hurst joined the Marines in 1982, other local public servants had already returned home having served their nation in the field of battle.

Before becoming a physician and the mayor of Moses Lake, and as the Vietnam War continued to rage halfway across the world, David Curnel was a college student struggling to earn enough money to pay for his education. Feeling like he was wearing himself out, and knowing that he would get drafted if he quit school, he decided instead to volunteer for service.

He spent the majority of 1969 as a grunt in the bush of Vietnam, taking part in Operation Dewey Canyon, the last major offensive by the 3rd Marine Division during the war and the largest operation to that point in the conflict, Curnel said.

Curnel returned home in January 1970 as part of President Richard Nixon’s promised troop withdrawal. From there, Curnel went to medical school, racking up a sizable amount of student debt in the process. A program at the time, the Public Health Service, offered to help alleviate those debts for medical professionals working in underserved areas, which prompted Curnel to take a position with the Community Health Center in Moses Lake.

Curnel and his wife left for a time, moving to the western side of the state, before realizing it was only greener on the other side because it always rained, he joked. Curnel returned to Moses Lake in 1995, and a little less than a decade later, he became the medical director of the Moses Lake clinic he had worked for while starting his medical career.

Around 12 years ago, representatives of the clinic, including Curnel, attended a meeting of the Moses Lake City Council to advocate for the development of a cancer center in town. They lost that vote, four to three.

“I said to myself, I can do as good a job and I have more concern for the citizens of Moses Lake than at least four members of council,” Curnel said.

The next year, Curnel won his race for city council.

Whether it’s service in the military, or with law enforcement, or schools, or other parts of the community, the Marine Corps veterans who spoke with the Herald each expressed an abiding commitment to public service.

“Anything that you can do for other people is a very rewarding thing to do,” Curnel said. “I’ve always felt that was one of the biggest things in life. Give back to other people, because they’ve given things to you.

“Whether it be to serve your country, or to serve your community,” he added.