After Iraq, former Marine aspires to teach

Dominic Castiello, 25, has been all around the world. From Japan and Haiti, to the Philippines and Iraq, the Valley Stream resident served as a sergeant in the Marines, coordinating the transfer of personnel and supplies in addition to setting up landing zones. After eight years in the Marines, Castiello’s service is complete, and he currently attends Adelphi University with the goal of becoming a history teacher.

“The Marines was something I was always interested in,” Castiello said. “After 9/11, I felt an obligation to serve. I wanted to be a part of something.”

Castiello graduated Central High School in 2001 and joined the Marines later than year. He said both of his grandfathers served in World War II, and he was always interested in their war stories.

His first assignment, he said, was in 2003 in Okinawa, Japan, where he was attached to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. That unit is deployed to sea and is called upon for maritime special operations at night or during bad weather conditions, he said. Castiello spent three months patrolling the Pacific Ocean before being deployed to Haiti in 2004 for Operation Secure Tomorrow.

When a Haitian rebellion in 2004 ousted then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide during his second term, U.S. troops deployed to the poverty-stricken country. “We did a lot of humanitarian missions while we were there,” Castiello said. “We would spend 20 hours a day filling up cargo nets with supplies, food and first aid equipment to different sites in Haiti.”

Castiello said he returned back to the states — to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina — by the end of August in 2004 and began preparing for his next mission: Iraq. “I accepted it,” he said of his assignment. “When I went to Iraq, I was already in the Marines for three years. To me, it was just another time to pack my bags and head out. You just don’t want to make a mistake and get one of your men killed.”

He deployed to Iraq in February 2005, where he was stationed in one of the more dangerous locales in the country, Fallujah. He served in a motor transport company, he said, which delivered food, water, fuel and ammunition to other Marines. Castiello’s job was to man the machine gunner atop the convoy that carried the supplies.