SYLACAUGA, Ala. – Each month, SylacaugaNews.com and Yea!106.5 feature a veteran online and on-air, honoring them for their service to our country. Presented by Radney-Smith Funeral Home, the SylacaugaNews.com and Yea!106.5 Veteran of the Month for March is Bo Reeves.
*note Q is abbreviated for questions asked to Bo Reeves. A is abbreviated for Reeves’ answers.
Q: Tell me your full name.
A: My name is Donald Douglas Reeves, but people call me Bo.
Q: What is your date of birth:
A: 08/27/1956
Q: What was your rank?
A: My rank was Corporal E-4
Q: And what branch of service?
A: United States Marine Corps.
Q: What years did you serve?
A: I served from December of 1975 to December of 1981.
Q: And what was your job?
A: My job was as a security guard for the President of the United States. I was in the helicopter squadron and the helicopter was the one that flew to the White House lawn, picked the President up, and transported him out to Andrews Air Force Base, and also transported him out to several places around Washington, D.C. so I was in HMX-1, Marine Helicopter Squadron 1. I was a military policeman but I never did a day of actual police duty. I went through MP school at Ft. McClellan and finished first in my class there so I got sent to Quantico, and it took about 2.5 months to get a top secret White House clearance and then I got sent to Washington, D.C. and stayed there the whole time I was in the Marine Corps.
Q: Did you ever serve anywhere else stateside or overseas?
A: Well I did several trips overseas, like the President went to Panama and gave the Panama Canal away. I went with him there. I went to Warsaw Poland and Paris France, but most of my duty was stateside. I spent a lot of time at Camp David and I spent a lot of weekends in a peanut field in Plains, GA with Jimmy Carter. It was the last 6 months of Gerald Ford and then Jimmy Carter.
Q: Tell me something that you remember most about your time serving.
A: What I remember most about serving was Boot Camp—Marine Corps Boot Camp. Most of the other branches of service, when you join, you are in that branch of service. But with the Marine Corps, you have to make it through Boot Camp in order to be a Marine. And when I went to Boot Camp, each platoon has about 50-60 men, and I was chosen as the Honor Man for our platoon. So that was a real proud moment for me. That’s a big deal to Marines.
Q: That was a honor.
A: It was. I got promoted to PFC. I got a year’s subscription to Leatherneck Magazine, and I got my dress blues. I got to graduate in them. Everybody else had to graduate in their green uniform and I got to graduate in dress blues, and got ‘em for free, so that was really good. Saved me a lot of money.
Q: If you could say something to those that want to serve, what would you tell them?
A: I would tell that that this country. . . on our worst day is better than any country on earth. It is such an honor to serve this country. It will be something you’ll never forget—it will stay with you for a lifetime. I was in the Marines and they say once a Marine, always a Marine. That’s very true. It has taught me lessons from when I was a young man. It made me become a man, and to serve my country was a great honor.
Q: So if you could do it again, would you?
A: Oh I’d go today if I could.
Q: Tell me a little bit why.
A: Why? Because of the values of this country and what this country was founded on was freedom and I would fight for freedom in a heartbeat.
Q: Is there anything else that you want to say about your time serving?
A: I did not make a career out of the Marine Corps because after the Marines with the idea I came out and went to college and things like that. But I wish now I would have stayed in the full 20 years, naturally for the benefits and everything. That’s the only regret I have—that I didn’t stay and make a career out of it. I work with a lot of military people now. I go military bases. My job in the Marine Corps helped me to get the job I have now, so I’ve been to about every military base in America and worked on their cleaning up their soil and things of that nature. So the Marines helped me, not only when I was a young man, but later on, it helped me get jobs with different companies doing what I do.
Q: So is your job now technically with the Marine Corps?
A: No it’s not. It is a public company. I’ve worked for a company out of Colorado called Matrix Environment. Now I work for a company called Zapata, and they’re out of Charlotte, NC. It’s a public company but most of the contracts we do are government contracts. ‘Cause naturally, the government, the Army and Marines, they deal with explosives a lot, so that’s what we do. After they train soldiers, we go in and clean up what they left behind.