Juan Galvan saw a Marine in the flesh for the first time when he was a freshman in high school. When Galvan asked one of his teachers who the man in uniform was and what he did, she replied, “I don’t know everything they do, but I know it is hard to become a Marine.”
From that day on, becoming a Marine became Galvan’s dream. “That’s what drove me toward that path, just to try to challenge myself,” he said. When he was a junior at Dublin High School, Galvan enlisted, and one week after he graduated in May of 2005, he started boot camp training in California. Three months later he completed Marine combat training.
When Galvan joined, he had initially wanted to be in the infantry -- “They’re the grunts, what everybody thinks Marines do,” he said, -- but his father asked him to consider other jobs. When the Recruiter reviewed his test scores, he told Galvan he could choose his own path, and asked whether there was any particular field he was interested in.
“At that time I didn’t know there were other jobs available in the Marine Corps,” he said. “But I told them I’d always had an interest in auto body and mechanical work.”
They assigned Galvan to learn to be a diesel and heavy equipment mechanic -- both things that Galvan thought he might want to do later in life. So after he finished his combat training at Camp Pendleton, Galvan traveled to Camp Johnson in North Carolina to learn the ins and outs of being a Marines mechanic. He learned to work on High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles HMMWV’s, Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement MTVR’s (similar to semi trucks), and later went back to learn to work on military motorcycles.
When he finished his training, Galvan was assigned to Camp Lejeune, also in North Carolina. Over the next five years, was deployed overseas three times, twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan. On the first deployment he worked in interior security for seven months.
That deployment was extended, and Galvan soon found himself in leadership positions -- by the time he was 20, he was supervising a truck full of Marines on cross-country missions bringing food and supplies to other bases. “That was one of the most fun experiences I’ve had in the Marines,” he said. “On that deployment I even got to see one of my brothers over there.” (Three of Galvan’s four brothers are also Marines.)
On his next overseas deployment, Galvan served as a platoon sergeant in Iraq, supervising 64 Marines. “I was mainly just making sure that their needs were taken care of, that they were talking to family, that they had high morale,” he said.
After five months, he was sent to Afghanistan, where he began working as a mechanic in earnest. “We were taking vehicles that were blown up by IED, and we were charged to try and repair as much as we could or salvage what we could from those vehicles,” he said. Then they put him in charge of the retrograde lot, making sure vehicles that come in from Iraq were in good enough condition to be used.
In 2010, Galvan switched tracks and applied for a special duty assignment as a recruiter. He requested to work in California and New York -- and ended up stationed right in the middle, in South Texas. “It wasn’t what I wanted at first, but that’s the one thing that I have been taught in the Marine Corps -- that they’re going put you you’re going blossom type deal. My whole career, everywhere I don’t want to go, they send me. But it turns out, I get a good experience out of it and learn more about myself.”
After three years as a recruiter, Galvan was sent to Twentynine Palms in California, where he again assumed a leadership role as a diesel mechanic supervisor. He and the other mechanics were in charge of maintaining a large inventory of vehicles. “It was around the clock work, there were days where we were showing up at five in the morning, not getting off until 10 at night. That would go on for a month, two months straight, and then we’d get one week where we could slow down.”
In 2016, he received permanent change of station orders and was assigned to a unit in Okinawa, Japan. While stationed in Japan, he deployed to the Philippines to help a unit involved in the Battle of Marawi, a five-month conflict there. “That was interesting,” he said. “It gave me a different view of other conflicts going around the world, and where we’re actually supporting and helping out.” Galvan received
Galvan received permanent change of station orders in 2018, and since then has been stationed near Arlington, Texas as a supervisor for maintenance mechanics. “In this role I’m more of an instructor and inspector,” he said. “We work with reservists that come in once a month, and I have active duty sergeants in El Paso, Oklahoma, Alabama, and here in Grand Prairie who help me deal with day-today business.” That business means
That business means making sure vehicles are serviced on time, parts are ordered, and the unit is ready for inspections. His job is Monday through Friday, usually from around 7am until 5pm.
“The job is a little more laid back than I am used to,” Galvan said, and he enjoys getting to see his family more -- his parents Alfonso and Felicitas Galvan still live in Dublin, only an hour-and-a-half drive from his base.
Like many of his other jobs in the Marines, this one requires leadership skills. Over his career, Galvan has learned that leading is more about listening and being observant than anything else.
“No two Marines are alike,” he said. “One can work day in day out, work, work, work, and he’s happy with it. Another one might be able to work eight hours and then after that he shuts down, can’t handle any more. It’s just about knowing your Marines and their abilities, and learning from them. That’s what makes you a good leader is to be able to adjust, to be able to facilitate, train, lead and mentor them.”
In the future, Galvan hopes to round out his 20-year career in the Marines, and then use his mechanical skills to work in an auto body shop or open his own.
When he gets the chance, he enjoys visiting his wife, Gaynor, who lives in the Philippines and works for a military subcontractor. Galvan and his wife met when he was deployed in the Philippines, and have been married since (January 2020). “Eventually, like a few years down the road from now, I would like to move over there,” he said. “I love being there.”
With restrictions due to COVID, however, traveling has been hard. In his free time, Galvan enjoys working out -- he has competed in running and outdoor sport challenges with his friends in the Marines. He also likes woodworking. “I make plaques and shadowboxes for those that are retiring or moving to another state, and those that are just leaving the Marine Corps,” he said. “That usually keeps me busy on the weekends.”
Galvan’s advice to Dublin students is to not be afraid to take a risk. “Put yourself in a position that’s going to challenge you mentally and physically, and make you try to better yourself. Something we say at work just about every other day is, ‘You look too comfortable, you’re not trying hard enough.’ It’s important to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other graduates, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.