SAN DIEGO --
In
a historic town that’s deeply immersed in sports lived a young man with a
strong passion, ambitions and life goals.
Lance Cpl. Matthew P. Chaves, Kilo Company, 3rd Recruit
Training Battalion, spent the first 18 years of his life growing up in the blue
collar town of Natick, Mass., just west of Boston where he was a varsity player
in a variety of sports including hockey, lacrosse, cross country and skiing.
“It’s an old town that’s deep rooted in sports where I
grew up,” said Chaves. “If my friends and I were not playing sports, then we
were cheering for our favorite teams.”
Once Chaves graduated from high school, he applied to go
to college at the Naval Academy and was quickly accepted. However, he
ultimately chose to leave the institution before graduating.
“I learned a lot of leadership skills and college matured
me a lot,” said Chaves. “I played for the lacrosse team during my time there,
and that helped me grow as a person and understand the meaning of team work and
brotherhood.”
Once Chaves left college, he received a job offer from
Alta Ski Resort to work as a carpenter and ski patroller.
“The resort was built within a small mountain town in
Alta, Utah, where approximately 300 people lived,” said Chaves. “One of the
more important jobs I did on the ski resort was waking up before day light to
go out with a crew of guys to conduct avalanche control before the skiers
arrived to make their way down the mountain.”
Chaves explains he learned to adapt and overcome during
his time of working in the snow.
“When you’re being snowed in and stuck or being caught in
dangerous situations with the snow, you have to be able to find a way to work
out of it,” said Chaves. “You don’t always have everything under control in a bad
wilderness environment, so you have to stay alert and depend on the ones around
you to work through sudden situations.”
After working a couple of years in Utah, Chaves decided
to chase an early dream and attempt to become a United States Marine. Once
Chaves’s brother Daniel became a Marine, it gave him the extra motivation he
needed to do the same.
Chaves believes the things he learned throughout his life
thus far, helped him during his time at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego.
“I’ve learned a lot of things before coming here that have
helped me tremendously as I’ve gone through recruit training,” said Chaves.
“Team work, adapt and overcome and the will to work hard are all things that
have been instilled in me before coming here. It has been a tough three months,
but the cold chill feeling of earning my Eagle, Globe and Anchor was worth
every drop of sweat it took to get it.”
The new Marine graduates as the company honorman as well
as being the ironman. The drill instructors invest a lot of time selecting the
Marine that stands out the most to be selected as the company honorman while
being named ironman highlights Chaves as the single most physically fit Marine
of the company.
Now that he has earned the
title Marine, he will continue training at Marine School of Infantry and learn
his military occupational specialty as an infantryman.