When Curtis Imming joined the Marines after 9/11, he knew he was going to war—it's why he joined—but he didn't realize how the war would impact the “normal process” of joining, and how valuable that process could have been.
“The beginning of 2003, Afghanistan is already going on and Iraq kicks off,” Imming, 41, explained. “I get assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. They're already gone. They're already in Iraq, and I'm in Infantry