MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – One 17-year-old Myrtle Beach man is training to become an infantryman in the Marines, fighting on the front lines, and was featured on the cover of TIME magazine this month.
“His reaction when he first came into the recruiting office was almost disbelief because it’s been a lifelong dream of his to become a marine,” said Staff Sergeant Shawn Sturgill, Gregory Grammer’s recruiting officer.
Semper Fi, that’s the motto Myrtle Beach 17-year-old Gregory Grammer has always wanted to live by. Now, he’s representing the United States Marine Corps on the front cover of TIME magazine.
“The notoriety it brought him was certainly unexpected,” said Gregory Grammer’s dad, Bill Grammer. “Nobody expected to be on the front cover of a prestigious magazine.”
His dad, Bill Grammer, smiles when he talks about how proud he is of his son. “I said Donald Trump’s probably seen your picture, as have all the other politicians out there.”
Grammer completed training at Parris Island and is now at Camp Pendleton in California training to be an infantryman, but, before he was a United States Marine, he walked the halls of Myrtle Beach High School as a Seahawk.
“His first ROTC teacher is a retired Sergeant Major who was a great influence on him, did a great job with him,” his dad said.
Grammer is part of TIME magazine’s story of those enlisting who were born after 9/11.
“He never saw the before, only the after,” Bill Grammer said.
But his dad says it wasn’t necessarily an influence for him to graduate high school a year early and enlist, it was his patriotism.
“On the anniversary of 9/11 of course, you know, it’s back in the news again and every year, and we would talk about it,” said Bill Grammer. “But, I don’t know that that, I don’t know that he really understood the significance of that.”
USMC Staff Sergeant Shawn Sturgill, Grammer’s recruiting officer, says he saw himself in Grammer when helping him to enlist.
“It took me back and reminded me a lot of when I was getting my start in the Marine Corps, which was awesome because that’s why I wanted to be a recruiter was to help people get their start in the Marine Corps., just like my recruiter did for me,” said Staff Sergeant Sturgill.
Grammer will still be 17-years-old when he is deployed.
