Written by Terence Ford
When SgtMaj Mark O’Loughlin invited me to his retirement ceremony at the Wounded Warrior Battalion West ‘onboard’ Camp Pendleton I had no idea what I would be getting involved in!
When I first meet SgtMaj months earlier, I’d been teaching the fundamentals of digital photography to OIF/OEF trauma injured veterans for three years at Pathway Home, at the California Soldier’s Home in Yountville, CA. I hoped it might somehow help them recover from their unrelenting depression and anxiety.
Fred Guzman, who ran Pathway, taught me that nobody ever completes their education, treatment or graduates in the military without a Graduation Ceremony. He added with his usual sarcastic-edged comment, and not for the first or last time: “Terence, you really don’t know shit, do you?”
So there I was, walking into the Yountville Community Center for yet another graduation ceremony for the men who were my students and who I’d been teaching photography for the last four or five months. By then, these men had become my friends and I had learned to care about their welfare, a lot!
I hadn’t even got my camera out in an attempt to get ready to make some images of this graduating ‘class’ when someone, I think someone from the Yountville Rotary Club, came over and said, “There’s some folks here I think you might want to meet.” And they proceeded to lead me towards a group of large, uniformed men standing off to one corner in the back of the room.
Immediately, my anxiety started to peak! Since my experience with the cops in Chicago and the Army at the Pentagon in the 1960’s, men in uniforms always ended up making me very nervous. After a quick introduction to what turned out to be five marines from Camp Pendleton, I was able to excuse myself and put as much space as I could between them and myself!
The Gradation Ceremony went well. Fred always knew just how to set the right tone and to say just the stuff to get everybody to relax. That wasn’t an easy task for the veterans, given the room was filled with hundreds of folks the veteran-graduates didn’t know
We had a very nice lunch, thanks again to Rotary. Afterwards, I headed back to the building at the California Soldiers Home where the Pathway Home was housed. I wanted to catch up to Robert to see if he needed a ride to SFO for his flight home to New Orleans.
While Robert was packing up his gear, I asked if I could make a final portrait of him and he said sure. About halfway thru our final time together, there was a loud knock on his door. We looked at one another wondering ‘now what’ as he open the door to reveal LtCol Jim Fullwood (6’4”), SgtMaj Mark O’Loughlin (6”3’ and no neck) and three SSgt who I hadn’t meet yet. I heard LtCol Fullwood announce in a loud southern drawl that he was “Looking for Terence Ford!”
When I looked over towards the door I found it was filled with some very large marines in their Charlie’s while I heard a panicky voice inside my head! “Oh fuck they finally found me!” as I looked out the window to see if I could survive the jump!
LtCol Fullwood reintroduced himself and his fellow marines saying: “We’ve got a building full of wounded marines at Camp Pendleton and we’d like you to come and see if you could help us out!”
Terence Ford is a professional photographer with a background in media production . His program, fStop Warrior Project, is supported by the fStop Foundation, whose mission is to support military veterans and first responders in Santa Barbara County thru the restorative power of learning digital photography.