Roles in the Corps: Aviation Supply
Diaz: My name is Michael Diaz. I am a Lance Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, and I work aviation supply. I work on all the aircrafts we're carrying, the Harriers, AV-8s(?), the V-22s. Any aircraft that needs a part, we have them all here. And if we don't, we just refer it off station, track it, get it from wherever it's at and bring it here. I talk to the squadron expediters. If they need parts, the maintenance side need parts for aircraft, I get them parts as soon as possible so they can get that bird up in the air. It's important I do my job well because if an air is down and we need to carry out a mission, as soon as they call the part, I've got to get it as soon as possible, they can put it in the aircraft, get that bird mission capable. This one day it was rewarding at work, we got just bombarded with a bunch of documents we needed. We had like 15 docs. We had all those parts and we got them off to the squadron. That felt good to see them aircrafts go up and it's like, wow, I helped get that bird up in the air, and it's a good feeling. I love my job. It's exciting. For now, what I have to do to grow in responsibilities, pick up rank, I have to just keep following my orders, make sure everything I get tasked to do gets done quickly and correctly and they see they can trust me with it, I'll just keep getting more responsibilities. What makes the Marine Corps unique is our readiness at all times. We practice it all the time since boot camp working together to get everything done faster. You've always got to be prepared, have everything ready for if we need to get deployed now, you'll be ready to get deployed now. Have backup if you need to, have plan A, plan B. We need to get out there, just do our job and do it correctly the first time. That's the most ready we can be. That's how our nation needs us. We need to be there for them. First motivation for me to become a Marine was really walking through the recruiter's office and seeing that uniform just hanging there and I'm just like, that's the uniform I want to wear. I want to work for it and here I am now. I'm proud to be a United States Marine.
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