Sisters make it through enlisted Marine infantry training
By Hope Hodge Seck, Staff writer 4:36 p.m. EDT April 11, 2015
It all started with a lucky visit to Smoothie King.
Sgt. Zonell Westfield, a Marine recruiter, prided himself on being able to find future Marines everywhere, and when he saw 18-year-old Kendra Hazelwood working behind the counter on a fall day in 2013, he couldn't resist handing her a business card.
"I've got the eye for a Marine," he told her.
That exchange would set off a chain of events that would result in what appears to be a historic first for the Marine Corps: two sisters successfully completing enlisted infantry training as part of a small group of female volunteers given that opportunity. Kendra accomplished this in the fall of 2014. Her older sister, Chelsa Hazelwood, graduated from Infantry Training Battalion on March 19.
Three weeks after Westfield's visit to Smoothie King, Kendra Hazelwood walked into his recruiting office in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
"I've been looking at your card every day," she said, according to Westfield. "I can't stop thinking about it."
It was those moments that made all the pressures and frustrations of recruiting worthwhile, Westfield said.
"I tell [the recruiters I train], 'You can't be afraid. You've got to go out there, and you've got to ask everybody because you never know,'" he said. "When [Kendra] walked in there that day, just all that hard work and getting turned down, it made up for all that."
A CrossFit athlete in peak physical condition, Kendra, now a lance corporal, said she had always harbored a dream of being a Marine. When she took her Initial Strength Test at the recruiting station, it became clear she wasn't just any recruit.
With an 11-minute mile-and-half run, 85-second flexed-arm hang, and 144 crunches, she was the fittest woman ever to take the test at that station. A year and a half later, her name is still on the station's "hall of fame" board as the women's record holder — in every single fitness category.
Kendra said she was determined to take the toughest route available to her.
"I'd rather be in the suck then sitting back doing nothing," she told Marine Corps Times via email.
During her two months in the Delayed Entry Program, Kendra said she discovered there were still opportunities for women to attend Infantry Training Battalion at Camp Johnson, North Carolina, on a volunteer basis.
"I thought it was awesome to get to train with 0300 combat vets," she said. "They push you 110 percent everyday. We all should train like that."
And while Kendra was getting ready for boot camp, her sister Chelsa, 21, was on her own journey. Chelsa, now a private first class, was a member of the volunteer fire department in Murfreesboro, she said, and expected to make firefighting her career.
"I didn't fully make up my mind to joint the military until January of 2014 [when Kendra started recruit training]," she said. "But seeing the transformation in my sister after she graduated boot camp and the camaraderie she had gained with the other Marines, it made my decision to become a Marine very easy."
At the recruiting station, Westfield had already met and chatted with Chelsa during family 'welcome aboard' briefs during Kendra's enlistment. Staff Sgt. Steven Kalchik, the station's manager, told Westfield he could expect to see Chelsa again.
"When Kendra comes back from boot camp graduation, Chelsa is going to want to be a Marine," Kalchik told him.
And she did. Chelsa, who said she and her sister have always been very close and competitive, enlisted in June 2014. It was clear from the outset that she, too, would volunteer for the infantry track.
"I just remember thinking how awesome it would be to train alongside the infantry," she said. "I thought it would be awesome to shoot mortars, so I put 0341 [mortarman] on my 'wish list' once we started training."
The sisters cycled through infantry training separately. Kendra arrived at ITB in August 2014 and Chelsa in January of this year. For Chelsa, there was an added level of support: Since Kendra had already entered the fleet and was working as a combat engineer at Camp Lejeune's 8th Engineer Support Battalion, she could pick Chelsa up on the weekends after training.
Both sisters faced similar challenges during the strenuous eight-week ITB course, including injuries that threatened their progress along the way. Kendra began the course with a foot injury that made it difficult to run or even stand with a pack. She secured her full-duty chit just an hour before she was due to start with ITB's Bravo Company, she said. The three miles she ran in the course's initial physical fitness test were the first she had been able to run in three months. But she did it.
Chelsa began to feel the physical strain closer to the end of the course, when her company prepared to complete a grueling 20-kilometer hike with packs. She had a twisted ankle, shin splints and hip pain, but she wasn't about to quit.
"I just had to mentally push myself to keep hiking no matter the discomfort," she said.
Despite the pain, both sisters said they enjoyed the challenge of the course and the thrill of doing something only about 240 other female Marines accomplished.
"I would describe it as one of the best times of my life," Kendra said. "Waking up not knowing what kind of hellish PT or training you'll be doing made me eager for the next day. It was as difficult as I'd imagined, but such a wonderful experience made all of the pain worth it."
For Chelsa, ITB taught her to "remember that the suck doesn't last forever, and it makes liberty so much sweeter," she said.
Westfield said he never doubted the sisters would complete the training.
"I knew they were going to make it," he said. "It makes me very proud, even considering that they followed in my footsteps and both became engineers. There aren't words that can really describe it. It shows their upbringing and their character."
And he is still on good terms with the Hazelwoods' parents, he said, who were surprised to have two daughters enlist, but proud to see them make the journey. After Chelsa graduated from ITB last month, she headed to Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, to begin engineer equipment operator training.
Both sisters say they would volunteer to serve in ground combat units if they open up to women in the future. But even though they didn't earn an infantry military occupational specialty at the end of their hard work, Kendra and Chelsa said they were grateful for the journey.
Surviving the rigors of boot camp and infantry training has only made the sisters closer, they said.
"We joke around and say that we're double the sisters now," Chelsa said. "Sisters by blood and sisters by Corps. We've definitely grown an awesome bond through us both experiencing ITB and now us both in the engineer field. I'm really happy to have my best friend to look up to and to share this journey with."
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/careers/marine-corps/2015/04/11/sisters-make-it-through-marine-infantry-training/25403629/
