Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego -- Some individuals use past experiences to help steer the direction of their future. For one Marine, he used what he had learned from being homeless to motivate him to be able to provide a future for him and his family.
Private Justin C. Pasadava, Platoon 3214, India Company, 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, spent his years under difficult circumstances and used his experiences to help him.
“My grandfather passed way when I was 12 years old,” said Pasadava. “We lived in his house up until the time of his death. Then we were forced to leave.”
Pasadava is a native of Honolulu, Hawaii. After the death of his grandfather, him and his family moved all of their valuables into their vehicles and had nowhere else to go.
“As time went on, all of my families things put more and more stress on the vehicle, causing it to break some parts,” said 18-year-old Pasadava. “We could not afford to fix the problems so they only got worse.”
After 3 weeks of living in the vehicle, the young Private’s uncle let him and his family go stay with him for about two weeks.
“As we were staying at my uncles house, we got a call from my other grandfather, my dad’s father, that he had bought my family plane tickets to another island in Hawaii called Kauai,” said Pasadava. “We lived with him for about 2 years.”
In 2010, Pasadava’s family had some disagreements, causing his mother to take him and his three sisters to live in a shelter for a month. Pasadava explained that the living conditions were hard because there were five of them in total with little room or resources.
“We had three small beds for all of us to share,” said Pasadava. “We were not provided food so my mother worked part time at a McDonalds, earning minimum wage, so we couldn’t afford much food.”
When his family could not live in the shelter anymore, they met back up with their father because according to Pasadava, his father didn’t want to be away from them anymore.
“We went back to living in our car,” said Pasadava. “There was no space at all so we were uncomfortable all of the time.”
Pasadava explained that the family only ate fish cooked on a portable stove because they caught it and couldn’t afford to buy anything else.
On top of everything, Pasadava still attended school at Kapua High School.
“I didn’t get picked on,” said Pasadava. “Most of the kids helped me out and gave me sympathy because I wasn’t the only one that was homeless at my school.”
After about a month, Pasadava and his family moved to a homeless shelter where they stayed for approximately two more months until everything started getting better.
“Both my parents had jobs and we finally found a place that we could afford rent,” said Pasadava.
As time went on, Pasadava and his family began to get financially stronger until they had steady income and didn’t have the fear of being homeless again.
Pasadava graduated from high school in 2014 and pursued a career in the Marine Corps.
“I just wanted a stable job and have the chance to save enough money to help myself and my family out,” said Pasadava. “I also want to be able provide whatever I can for my future family.”
In August of 2014, Pasadava traveled to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego to give his all to become a United States Marine.
“While I was in recruit training I thought a lot about my time being homeless and used that to motivate me to get through it,” said Pasadava. “I had three meals a day and clothes on my back so I didn’t think it was that bad.”
After completing all of his necessary requirements, Pasadava has earned the title Marine and will move on to the School of Infantry following his graduation from MCRD San Diego. Pasadava will then attend his military occupational specialty school to be an aviation mechanic in the Corps. He plans on making a career out of the Marine Corps while gaining as much discipline and experience as he can from it.
“I have been through a lot through my childhood,” said Pasadava. “It made me stronger in every way and paved the road for me to be where I am today.”