{"id":7396,"date":"2022-03-06T16:39:56","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T16:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/?p=7396"},"modified":"2022-04-28T16:36:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T16:36:27","slug":"behind-the-uniform-spc-anthony-constantine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/2022\/03\/06\/behind-the-uniform-spc-anthony-constantine\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Uniform: Spc. Anthony Constantine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/span>\"\"
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Spc. Anthony Constantine, military police<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Spc. Anthony Constantine, a military police with the 290th Military Police Company, who has served four years in the military.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did you join the MDNG?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cActually, it sounds lame, but for a long time I was playing a battlefield game and I kept getting all the recruiting ads. I was just thinking to myself it\u2019d be cool to join one day. Then I never knew there was a National Guard until my mom told me about it. So I was like, yeah, so I\u2019ll try out for it. So, I just went to the recruiting office near me in Salisbury and signed up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does it feel to work in the community?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh it\u2019s nice, I really enjoy it actually. I\u2019m glad I joined, especially the last few years with the COVID missions. I just feel like we were actually doing something important, helping out with the testing sites and distributing vaccines. I actually like the orders better than just drill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What part of your training has prepared you the most for COVID missions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI guess just military police training. A lot of it is just dealing with people and dealing with the public. Military police training is usually dealing with people who are difficult to deal with, but the people that we\u2019ve been helping out with all the missions have been kind. Also, during the COVID missions we got a lot of public affairs training too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is your favorite part of being a soldier?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI guess just being part of a team, before I really didn\u2019t have that as much. I didn\u2019t really have a big family either in my personal life. It\u2019s nice making a lot of friends here, a lot of connections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How has it been balancing military service and family time during the past few years?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been fine, I guess depends on the person because before I was in school. It was pretty easy to drop everything and go on orders and just do school online. Now I have a full-time job so it\u2019s a little trickier, but my job\u2019s been pretty nice about it\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How has serving during COVID impacted\/changed you as a soldier?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt makes me take it more seriously. When you\u2019re just doing drill, it kind of gets boring and I\u2019m like \u2018what are we doing this training for?\u2019. Then you get on orders and you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, this is why we\u2019ve been doing all this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has been the greatest reward serving during COVID?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI guess just knowing we are doing something important. When I\u2019m on orders, I actually feel like I\u2019m doing something with my life, impacting the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the next thing for you after this mission is over?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Just go back to school, hopefully switch to a different career field. I\u2019m actually trying to get into Officer Candidate School but I still need a few more credits before I\u2019m eligible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest reward serving during COVID<\/strong>: <\/p>

“I guess just knowing we are doing something important. When I\u2019m on orders, I actually feel like I\u2019m doing something with my life, impacting the community.\u201d<\/p>SAID CONSTANTINE<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I guess just knowing we are doing something important. When I\u2019m on orders, I actually feel like I\u2019m doing something with my life, impacting the community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":7397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[145,205,907,509],"class_list":["post-7396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-am-the-mission","tag-maryland-army-national-guard","tag-maryland-national-guard","tag-mdngcovid19response","tag-military-police"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7396"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7557,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396\/revisions\/7557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}