USO PERFORMER IS DEPLOYED TO AFGHANISTAN

Marine Corps Cpl. Rocio Sanchez left her career as a singer to enlist in the Marine Corps and is deployed to Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan. Marine Corps Cpl. Rocio Sanchez left her career as a singer to enlist in the Marine Corps and is deployed to Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Timothy Lenzo

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Deploys to Afghanistan
By Marine Corps Cpl. Timothy Lenzo
Regional Command Southwest

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan, Jan. 28, 2013 - Three years ago, Marine Corps Cpl. Rocio Sanchez was entertaining troops in Iraq with her vocals during USO shows. Now she is serving as an electronic key management systems clerk here.

"I traded in my high heels for combat boots and my microphone for an M-16," said Sanchez, currently deployed with Retrograde and Redeployment in support of Regional Command Southwest's Reset and Reconstitution Operational Group. "In May 2009, we went out to Iraq for a two-week tour."

Sanchez, from South Gate, Calif., already had made her decision to join the Marines before the tour. She joined the Marine Corps delayed entry program earlier that year.

"Looking back on it, I was sort of living a double life," Sanchez said. "I was doing the [pre-enlistment] functions, and at the same time preparing for the tour as a performer."

Shortly after the tour, Sanchez informed her band that she was joining the Marine Corps.

"I told my band I was sorry, but I had to do this," she said. "Since I was a little girl, I always wanted to be in the military, just like I had wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be four things when I was little: a teacher, a singer, a Marine and a police officer. I've done the first three so far."

Sanchez said she's met only one person who recognized her from her Iraq performance tour. While she was at Marine Corps recruit training, a drill instructor who had been in Iraq and attended her USO concert noticed her. Her commanding officer, Marine Corps Col. James Clark, said he was at one of the bases Sanchez visited, but that he did not attend the concert.

"From what I understand, she's a very good singer, but I know for a fact that she's a very good Marine," Clark said.

Many Marines are surprised to hear Sanchez was a USO performer -- until they hear her sing. "I heard her sing in church, and I told her maybe she should go on one of those shows, like 'The Voice,' and that's when the story came out," said Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Mark Neil, electronic key management system manager.

Sanchez no longer gets on a stage for service members, but that does not keep her from singing.

"Her voice is beautiful," said Neil, from San Diego. "She also sings around the office. I told her we are happy to have her in the Marine Corps, but I thought she could have made it as a singer."

Sanchez deployed to Afghanistan only a couple months after her first child, David Sanchez III, was born. Giving up a career as a singer was hard, she said, but leaving her son was harder.

"I left him when he was 6 months old," Sanchez said. "He couldn't even sit up by himself. That was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life." David is at home with Marine Corps Sgt. David Sanchez Jr., Sanchez's husband a military policeman with the provost marshal's office at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif.

For the singer-turned-Marine, deploying to Afghanistan was a necessity to grow as a leader and a Marine. When the opportunity came, she said, she jumped at the chance.

"I need to better myself in order to lead others," she explained. "I have to have that experience. I decided to join the Marine Corps, and I take responsibility for my job. I wasn't afraid to deploy, because I knew it was part of the job."

Sanchez has stepped into her job at Camp Leatherneck and has impressed the Marines around her with her maturity and work ethic.

"She hasn't missed a beat," said Clark, from Tollesboro, Ky. "She's been highly professional out here, and I'm really thankful she was willing to come. She's just a tremendous young lady, and someone the junior Marines can look up to. She is a great example of what hard work and dedication will get you."

THREE SIBLINGS DEPLOYED TO AFGHANISTAN

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
Army Warrant Officer Weldon Malbrough Jr. shows a family photo with younger brother, Philip, and twins, Jessica and Jordan. Like Weldon, the twins both enlisted and are also deployed in Afghanistan. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Mike McLeod

Face of Defense: Family Sends 3 Soldiers to Afghanistan
By Army Sgt. Mike McLeod
1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division
GHAZNI PROVINCE, Afghanistan, April 9, 2012 - As Army Warrant Officer Weldon Malbrough Jr. goes about his business on this dust-choked, dirt-basket-rimmed base here, he is one of many -- a paratrooper among paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division's "Devils in Baggy Pants" 1st Brigade Combat Team.

The 30-year-old force-protection staff officer also is one of three Malbroughs now deployed to Afghanistan. Jordan and Jessica, the family twins, followed Weldon into the Army, and with the pace of deployments in recent years, it was only a matter of time until their deployments overlapped.

It's not the first time their mother, Windy, has worried about more than one child in a war zone. Army Staff Sgt. Jordan Malbrough enlisted in 2005 and joined Weldon in Baghdad as part of the surge in 2007. Jordan now serves as an artillery radar operator with the 25th Infantry Division's 4th Brigade at Forward Operating Base Apache in Afghanistan's Khost province.

In recent years, the idea of families sending multiple children to the front lines has become part of the national consciousness thanks in large part to the movie, "Saving Private Ryan," in which three brothers are killed during World War II, and the last surviving brother is caught up in the Normandy invasion.
Windy has seen the movie, but it's one she has never internalized, with three of her four children deployed to Afghanistan.

"It's something they chose to do," she said. "To keep peace with my mind, I try to think happy thoughts." She still lives in metropolitan New Orleans, where she raised her children. Another son, Philip, works on an offshore oil rig.
"There is no worry-free time for mom," Windy said. "My kids are my heroes."
"She is such a strong woman," Jessica said.

Jordan enlisted at 17, and Jessica earned a college degree before enlisting. She was interested in an Army program to become a physician assistant or nurse, but that required three years of service. While her brothers pushed her hard to "drop a packet" and become an officer, she chose to enlist as a combat medic.

"I didn't want to push papers for three years," Jessica said.

Sgt. Jessica Malbrough deployed for the first time with the 4th Infantry Division's 4th Brigade to Kandahar, Afghanistan, a year ago. She has worked in the orderly room, provided cultural support on missions to capture insurgent leaders, and called in medevac helicopters to evacuate wounded soldiers.

"In the Army, you meet people and gain experiences that you just can't get anywhere else," she said.

The Malbroughs are a tight-knit family. Both sets of grandparents live within a few blocks. Being away from home for so long is difficult, Jessica said. It helps, she added, that she can call the man she looks up to the most, Weldon, or her best friend, Jordan. They relate to her Army service, and they're even in the same time zone -- a big deal when one is on the other side of the world from home, she said.

Back home, Windy uses her kids as a conversation piece with patrons of the accounting office that she manages. Most of the time, she feels like she is serving alongside her children, she said.
"People just say, 'Wow.' They don't understand how three siblings can be there at the same time," she said. "They all have great love for their country."

Weldon said people sometimes note that as the eldest of the three, he probably feels responsible for his siblings' well-being.

"We all enlisted during a time of war," Weldon said. "We all knew we were going to deploy. It was only a matter of time until they overlapped. I appreciate people's sentiments, but we all took an oath to do what we are doing."