Pat Hickey, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran from Fort Dodge, was 10 days away from graduating from boot camp when terrorist attacks claimed the lives of almost 3,000 people in New York City, Washington, DC and outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11, 2001.

Hickey, who enlisted at 18 in the year 2000, was training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. And when Hickey, along with his comrades, were told by an instructor about the attacks, they literally did not believe him.

“The instructors are constantly messing with you and keeping you uncomfortable,” Hickey said, referring to other times where instructors had fabricated stories to rile up the group.

So when Hickey was first told about the attacks, he and others mumbled under their breath, believing they were being fed another lie.

This angered the instructor.

“He was furious,” Hickey said.

From the squad bay where Hickey was at, the San Diego International Airport was in clear view.

So to prove his point, the instructor threw open the curtains and said, “Tell me there’s supposed to be that many planes on the tarmac.”

It was in that moment, Hickey realized what he was told was the truth.

“There were rows and rows of 47s,” Hickey said. “My heart sunk and it was like, ‘Oh s—, they aren’t kidding. I had never seen that many planes on the ground.”

Later that day, Hickey went to the barber, which was the only time he could watch TV.

“It was on the news and it was for real,” he said.

Hickey, who joined the military at 5 foot 7 and 103 pounds, wouldn’t end up overseas for another four years, but said the tragedy brought a new focus to him.

“Really, everybody was pretty motivated and it brought everybody in that squad bay together,” he said. “It’s what we train for.”

Upon graduation from boot camp, Hickey had increased his weight to about 125 pounds.

“I put on a lot of muscle, mostly in my legs,” he recalled. “The smaller guys would be at the head of the food line and we would get double portion and the heavy guys are at the end of the line with one portion. That’s how they control your size as you move through the process.”

Aside from having a sense of service for his country, Hickey said it was his size that motivated him to join the military.

“I wanted to prove I could do something that no one else thought I could,” he said.

Over the next few years, Hickey trained at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, California, before serving as a reserve at Delta Battery in Waterloo.

From June 2005 to September 2005, Hickey trained at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms in southern San Bernardino County, California.

In September, Hickey was shipped to Camp Fallujah in Iraq as part of the 5th Battalion 14th Marines. He would spend seven months there serving as force protection for the base.

He served as a tower guard and drove lead vehicle for the quick reaction team, which involved traveling through the villages just outside the city of Fallujah.

Hickey described tower duty as “basically watching the sand move,” but adding that “it’s an important job.”

Driving lead vehicle was typically more exciting.

“Driving the lead vehicle was definitely tense,” he said. “I was the first eyes on whatever was in front of us obviously. It’s a huge responsibility. You have eight guys that if you slip up or hit something or make a wrong turn, something bad could happen. It was kind of a hair-raising experience because you are outside the wire and away from base.”

The Humvee driven by Hickey had a 50 Cal gunner on top.

Visibility at night was difficult as he was unable to use headlights.

“I had to use night vision goggles because you can’t use headlights,” he said. “I was basically self-taught over there. You didn’t get that experience until you were out there. Even today, when there’s that big bright full moon, I was thinking how much I loved the full moon. The brighter the moon, the more I could see as a driver.”

Other times, Hickey would encounter children from the villages at the pump house, which is a canal that comes from the Euphrates River.

“When we were at the pump house near the villages, we would throw power bars to them,” Hickey said. “They were starving. They didn’t have anything. Getting a power bar from some green guy across the canal was pretty special. So they would come every day or every other day and could pattern it by the frequency you would see these kids. You knew if something wasn’t right because you had so much time to sit and watch.”

Hickey, a former Fareway employee at the Fort Dodge store, would go on to earn the rank of corporal. He was honorably discharged in November 2008.

He said the military gave him more than he could ever give back.

“It made a man out of me,” said Hickey, who now owns a food distribution business. “It defined my character. A 103-pound man can be a 7-foot-tall bullet-proof just ask me, I’ll tell you, Marine.”

Hickey said he learned the most when he had the opportunity to “get his hands dirty” and “see his surroundings.”

“I’ve seen the world and I’ve seen the good and the bad parts of the world,” he said. “My views on life and relationships, it all stems back to everything I learned in the military.”

Growing up, Hickey said it was people who doubted him that ended up serving as his biggest motivation.

“I thought, ‘I am going to show these guys I can do something bigger than myself,'” he said. “Because there was a lot of doubters.”

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