Our Neighborhood Veterans

by Jim Houck, Jr.

Danielle Bloxham  E-4 Spec. (Military Police) U.S. Army

Born on June 12, 1983, in Red Bluff, California, to Dawn and Stephen Marsh, was a bouncing little tomboy they named, Danielle. Eventually, Danielle was blessed with three younger sisters: Desiree, Ronee, and Stephenie. Danielle grew up in California; her mother, Dawn, moved to Maryland in 1996 after Danielle’s youngest sister turned one year old, and a year later, she and her other sisters followed. Danielle, being the oldest, went to school in California through the sixth grade and part of seventh. She then attended Maryland schools for the remainder of seventh grade through the eighth grade. Following eighth grade, Danielle went again back to California and finished ninth and tenth grades, and then came back to Maryland and got her GED. While in school, Danielle played softball and soccer—and just about every sport. She states that because she was a tomboy, she would travel with the boys’ basketball team to their games and keep the records for them. Her whole family was avid softball players and they still are; she said her uncle was in the Little League World Series in 1975 or 1976. She grew up around sports. She also loves to fish and hunt each year and gets a license for both. She was due to graduate in 2002, but she signed up for the military and left for boot camp before her graduation. Danielle was in 95 Bravo Military Police and went to Fort Leonard Wood Base in Missouri, because it has one-unit service training and is coed; it has different bays but the training is done all at one time and then they go to their assigned station. Danielle was there from mid-January until June. Afterwards, she had two or three weeks of leave, so she flew back to Maryland and then to California. Following her leave, she was off to South Korea. Danielle was stationed in Buson, South Korea at Camp Hialeah in the second biggest city (also a port city) in South Korea, with Seoul being the largest city. Camp Hialeah has a perimeter of two miles, which makes it very small, but Danielle said that they would back-fill for other areas, so they would go all the way to Seoul to fill for other people. In the United States, it is a lot different being a military police officer, according to Danielle. In South Korea, one of the major job duties you do there is riot control; there are a lot of riots. In South Korea, they have to have permission to riot from the K&P; this is because of KATUSA (Korean Obligation to the United States Army). They are actually Koreans and instead of doing their military service with the Korean Army, they do their twenty-six months with the United States Army. The Korean Military Police are outside of the gate and the U.S. Military Police are inside the gate, in case people would try to breach the gates; the protesters would have to get through the K&P to breach the gate and then get through the U.S. Military Police. Riot control is a big thing in South Korea. A few times, people would come close to breaching the gates by tossing Molotov cocktails. Danielle said that when she first arrived at the base, she would wear her uniform when riding the trains, but when she left a year later, they were not allowed to wear uniforms to travel in public. She was in South Korea from June 2002-July 2003. During her time in South Korea, she met someone and put in a COT (continuing overseas tour), requesting to go to Germany. You usually come back stateside for a short period of time after a tour, before being sent overseas again. Being young, Danielle thought she would put in to go to Germany, but in the process, tried to stop her orders. She flew home and then went back to Korea for another six months, then orders came down that would make Fort Huachuca, Arizona, her next duty station. Danielle was at Fort Huachuca until she got out of the Army. Danielle was released from the Army with a medical discharge in March 2005. While in Korea, Danielle had surgery in Seoul on her left hand for De Quervain’s disease, which is a painful inflammation of tendons in the thumb, causing pain from the base of the thumb that extend to the wrist. She also had surgery at Fort Huachuca on her right hand for De Quervain’s disease about a year and a half after her first surgery. While in Arizona, she got pregnant; she had her daughter, Jaiden, on April 10, 2004. When she got her discharge, they drove across country to Maryland; Danielle got a job shortly thereafter with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Frederick. She was an operations analyst. She worked for Wells Fargo just shy of ten years, when she decided to go back to school to be a vocational rehabilitation coordinator. While waiting for her benefits to come through after arriving home, Danielle developed problems from an injury to her knee she received in the field in South Korea. The surgery was supposed to be a simple in-and-out procedure; she had it done at Martinsburg Veterans Hospital. Danielle said that three weeks later, she was still in a full leg brace and on high doses of pain medication. At one point, she woke up and was in so much pain that she could not even stand the light, so she had her sister come get her and take her to the hospital. They cleaned a lot of infection out and asked her where she had the surgery done and proceeded to tell her that she needed to go there immediately. They flew her to Martinsburg; she blacked out and when she woke up, she found out that she had a staph infection and had to have emergency surgery again. Danielle said she was out for a week and remembers waking up and the nurse saying, “Thank God you’re awake.” She was in Martinsburg for another week, and she remembers that the hospital was really getting to her and she just wanted to get out of there and get home to her two-year-old daughter. She got approval to get off the morphine drip and asked what she could do to get home. The infection was so intense that she had to stay on the medication for quite a while, so they put a pick line in her left arm for her to be able to give herself intravenous therapy (IV). She set up to have in-home nurses come to her home. She was a young twenty-three at the time, and she had to give herself IVs three times a day. Danielle did the IVs for six weeks and was on medication for about six months to make sure the infection was gone from her system, then she went back to work. Danielle is now going to Frederick Community College, majoring in cyber security and is just one class short of graduating with her Associate’s degree. Danielle had a second daughter, Evie, on March 11, 2011. Both daughters like sports like their mother, and Evie is playing T-Ball this year. Danielle likes to reflect on the differences in weather in California and Maryland, and how she never owned a coat until she moved to Maryland in January of 1997. She said that thinking back, she remembers playing soccer in Woodsboro, where her mother lives and most of her family resides; Danielle and her daughters live in Thurmont. Danielle said that she and her mother and sisters worked or work at Trout’s Grocery Store in Woodsboro. She said that they would all joke with John Trout that there were more of their (Danielle’s) family working at the store than the Trout family. Danielle’s daughters go to school in Thurmont; Evie is in Pre-K and Jaiden goes to Thurmont Primary School. Danielle is also a Girl Scout leader and has been since her daughter, Jaiden, was in kindergarten. Jaiden joined when she was a Daisy and is now a cadet after seven years as a Girl Scout. Currently, Danielle can’t give the required time for a leader since she is in night school, but another leader is now standing in for her. She is getting ready to enroll Evie into the Girl Scouts this fall. Jaiden is very active in Thurmont activities, including softball and karate, and is in dance class and gymnastics; she took piano lessons and also loves fishing. Evie does T-Ball, dancing, and gymnastics, and will begin fishing this summer. Danielle said she has a lot of good friends in the area; she thanks God for them, because they really help her out with the kids. She has a hectic schedule with work and night classes and she could not be attending night school if it weren’t for the help with her daughters. Sometimes because of the lateness of her class, her friend keeps the girls overnight. Danielle said it is hard for her and the kids, and she will be glad when this semester is over. Danielle expressed that she and the kids love to travel. They try to go to Florida at least every other year. With all that Danielle is involved in, I think the vacation is well deserved, and I wish them a safe and fun-filled vacation—whenever they take it. Danielle is a busy woman and still takes time out for her two daughters. She is a very pleasant person to talk to, so if you see her on the street or at the grocery store or at the AMVETS, wish her a Happy Mother’s Day and thank her for her service to our beloved country. Thank you, Danielle! Happy Mother’s Day, Danielle, and to all Veteran mothers. God Bless America, God Bless the American Veteran, and God Bless You.

Danielle Bloxham is pictured with her two daughters, Evie and Jaiden.