A call to arms

He's still waiting to fight terrorists
a year after joining the Marine Corps,
but Avery Whiting's found what he needed.

By C. Mark Brinkley
Times Staff Writer

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - Like millions of small-town kids across the United States, Marine Pfc. Avery Whiting didn't know what he wanted to do with his life after he graduated from high school in the spring of 2001.

He grew up on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in the tiny Maine fishing community of Thomaston, home to only a few thousand people, its one and only claim to fame the 175-year-old state prison, closed and demolished earlier this year. While Whiting often thought about following in the footsteps of his parents, both of whom served in the Coast Guard, he was pretty much adrift.

Then the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell, the Pentagon burned and an airliner plunged into a Pennsylvania pasture. In the days that followed, his course became clear.

"You can either sit back and watch the war happen on TV or you can be there," Whiting said. "Sept. 11 definitely sparked my interest. After seeing that, I knew we were going to war."

After Pearl Harbor, the last time America was attacked directly, men lined up around the block to enlist. This time, the rise in enlistments in the months immediately after the attacks was a barely noticeable blip.

Whiting was part of that blip. On Sept. 11, Whiting was just an average teen-ager from a close-knit town where everybody knew everybody else, a recent graduate from a high school with only a couple dozen kids in its senior class. He had never ventured far from home, had never even seen New York City.

Ten days after the attacks, he enlisted, hoping he would be sent off to fight terrorism.

For some time, Whiting had wanted to quit his job as a jet refueler at the small airport near his house, but going to college wasn't in the cards.

"It just wasn't my thing," Whiting said, adding that he talked to recruiters before the attacks, sizing up his options. "I just put it off. I worked at the airport still. Then, September 11 happened."

Always intrigued by guns - he had hunted deer and practiced marksmanship with rifles for many years - Whiting turned to the Marine Corps.

When he shipped out to boot camp Nov. 5, three weeks before the Marines hit the ground at Camp Rhino in Afghanistan, he knew little about Marine life. The day before he departed, he watched "Full Metal Jacket," Stanley Kubrick's film about Marines during the Vietnam era, and was more than a little surprised to find that his Hollywood visions of boot camp were a bit off.

But he made it through, and on Feb. 1, he earned the title of "Marine." He became a gunner on the Javelin anti-tank rocket system and now is assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

In the year since the attacks, the 19-year-old has learned what Marines believe about honor, courage and commitment, about belonging to a team, about what it means to wear the eagle, globe and anchor. Through the encouragement of his fellow Marines, Whiting has discovered that his hobby of drawing and painting holds more potential than he ever thought. Now he believes college might be in the cards after all.

The Corps has not been what he expected, but it has been just what he needed.

Fresh from a Combined Arms Exercise in Twentynine Palms, Calif. - his first-ever trip to the West Coast - Whiting had his first real leave coming to him Aug. 22. He planned to go visit his older brother, who enlisted in the Army after Whiting left for boot camp and is stationed in Virginia, then go home and visit his parents and little sister, 13-year-old Allison.

Watching her brothers, Allison has started thinking about a future in the Air Force.

"So far, everything's been going pretty well," Whiting said. "I got the [occupational specialty] I wanted. I got to go to California for training. And, hopefully, I'll get to deploy soon."

That's where Whiting hopes he can make the biggest difference. He hasn't had time to follow the war on terrorism closely, but the searing images from a year ago - the reason he signed on in the first place - are the whole reason he is who he is today.

"I still think about it," Whiting said. "I believe everyone still thinks about that. It's probably not as fresh in their minds, but I don't think they've forgotten."

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