Fire to fight

Posted on January 27, 2021

By ANGELA M. CASTELUCCI / Managing Editor

The smell of manure clung to the chubby, tow-headed farm boy as he climbed aboard the school bus.

He ignored the taunts and whispers, plowing through his day and returning home to tackle the chores waiting for him.

Shorter than many of his peers in high school, he became used to everybody knocking him with their backpacks as he walked through the hallways wearing hand-me-down clothes from his cousins.

Then, the summer before his junior year, he read an article in Men’s Fitness Magazine that sparked a flame in his soul.

“It was an article about what it takes to become a Navy SEAL. They didn’t care who your mom and dad were – only what you could achieve drawing from an account that everyone has, but only you can write the check…and that’s from the heart and fire you have inside yourself,” Navy veteran Stephen “Otter” Otten said.

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