|
Winter 1997-98 |
Applied to U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidate School
for the following summer. |
|
Summer 1998 |
Attended OCS in Quantico, Virginia, graduating on August 14. |
|
June 1999 |
Graduated from Dartmouth with high honors and was commissioned
a second lieutenant in the Marines. |
|
October 1999 |
Reported to The Basic School at Quantico for six months of training
as a new Marine officer. |
|
May 2000 |
Graduated from The Basic School ranked #2 in a class of 224 lieutenants
and selected for further training as an infantry officer. |
August 2000 |
Graduated from the Infantry Officer Course, charged with training "the
best small-unit leaders in the world," and assigned as a weapons
platoon commander to the First Battalion of the First Marine Regiment
(1/1) at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego. |
|
August-December 2000 |
Took control of a platoon and participated in basic infantry
training with 1/1 at Camp Pendleton. |
|
January-June 2001 |
Conducted deployment work-up training, including boat raids,
maritime navigation, and supporting arms coordination, to be certified
as "special operations capable" for an upcoming deployment. |
|
August 13, 2001 |
Conducted deployment work-up training, including boat raids,
maritime navigation, and supporting arms coordination, to be certified
as "special operations capable" for an upcoming deployment. |
|
September 11, 2001 |
Finished three days of training with the Australian army in
Darwin. While relaxing on his last night in port, he saw the events
in New York and Washington on television. The MEU sailed immediately
for the coast of Pakistan. |
|
September 15, 2001 |
Conducted a humanitarian mission in East Timor while en route
to the North Arabian Sea. |
|
October 7, 2001 |
Watched Tomahawk missiles launched from U.S. ships as air strikes
began against targets in Afghanistan. |
|
October 19, 2001 |
Participated in the first large ground mission into Afghanistan,
recovering a crashed Black Hawk helicopter near the Pakistani border. |
|
Late October |
Provided security at an airfield in Jacobabad, Pakistan, that
was used to launch missions against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. |
|
Mid-November |
Seized Objective Rhino, a desert airstrip in southern Afghanistan,
to use as a staging base in the final push to capture Kandahar. |
|
December 4-8 |
Joined Task Force Sledgehammer on a series of missions to capture
and kill Taliban and Al Qaeda forces attempting to flee from Kandahar. |
|
January 3, 2002 |
Departed from Afghanistan after nearly two months of continuous
operations. |
|
March 2002 |
Received an invitation to try out to become an elite Recon Marine. |
|
March-June 2002 |
Attended the Basic Reconnaissance Course in Coronado, California,
and graduated at the top of the forty-man class. |
|
June-October 2002 |
Attended a rigorous string of Recon schools, including the Combat
Water Safety swim course at Camp Pendleton; the Army Airborne School
at Fort Benning, Georgia; Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape
(SERE) School at Warner Springs, California; and mountain reconnaissance
patrol training in the High Sierras near Bridgeport, California. |
|
November 2002 |
Took command of a Recon platoon and began training for possible
deployment to the Middle East. |
|
February 1, 2003 |
Departed California for Kuwait City. |
|
March 19, 2003 |
Crossed the Iraqi border on the opening night of Operation Iraqi
Freedom and took part in the blitz of Baghdad. |
|
March 23, 2003 |
Encountered the first serious Iraqi resistance in Nasiriyah on
what would become the Marine Corps' bloodiest day of the war. |
|
March 25, 2003 |
Platoon is ambushed in Al Gharraf, north of Nasiriyah, wounding
one Marine. |
|
April 1, 2003 |
Platoon battled Syrian jihadists in a midnight firefight near
a bridge in the town of Muwaffiqiya. Two Marines were wounded and
all the Syrians were killed. |
|
April 8-9, 2003 |
Recon embarked on a mission to Ba'quba to engage a Republican
Guard armored brigade; that day, Baghdad fell. |
|
April 17, 2003 |
Recon left Baghdad after a week of peacekeeping patrols and
drove south to Diwaniya to await further orders. |
|
June 3, 2003 |
Recon returned to the United States after four months in the Middle
East. |
|
November 2003 |
Fick left active duty, after four and a half years and two combat
deployments, to apply to graduate school. |