The Marine Security Guard Chronicles #2 – First Post Introduction

I remember being in MSG school back in 2002 and thinking about what post I would ask for. I knew that if you asked for something nice, you would get something horrible. And if you asked for something horrible, you would get it. That’s life, right? I always wanted to go to Africa. Matter of fact, that was one of my goals when I joined the Corps. I believe in week 5 of school they asked us for post choices. I am pretty sure that I just asked for Africa. And boy, did I get Africa. 

I was assigned Niamey, Niger. (pronounced NE-JEER, it’s French). I had to look it up on a map. This was before the internet was super prevalent. They used to have all these homemade VCR tapes from each post. You would watch them and learn as much as you could before you went out to post. I watched the one for Niamey over and over. It was so exciting. 

I finally got my visa and plane tickets and off I flew. Man, when I landed, I was shocked. The airport was so old, rundown, and dusty. I was truly in a third world country. I do not want to disparage Africa or the country of Niger. These are just my honest impressions. My MSG Detachment Commander (MSG DET CMDR) picked me and we drove in an up-armored Chevy Suburban. There is a funny story about this first day that I’ll save for later.

Driving around Africa in the daytime was pretty frickin’ scary the first couple of days. All that stood between us and them was our vehicle. They are very nice people but you never know what extremely, EXTREMELY poor people are capable of. Plus I was only 21 years old. I was a baby, playing Marine. I was in Africa for 15 months. 15 great months. The smaller and worst the post, the tighter the community. I will go into more about Africa over the course of the series. For now, check out some pictures.

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