Support Our Troops - Jesse Crowson
Hi, my name is Jesse Crowson. I am the son of Larry Crowson. I am now a 2 month taper apprentice working alongside my Dad with Olympic. I just wanted to take a minute to tell you a little about myself.

For the past 4 years I have been in the United States Marine Corps. Throughout those 4 years I have had the opportunity to travel around the globe and visit many interesting countries and see many different cultures. My MOS (Military Occupational Skill) is a crewman/crew chief of the Assault Amphibious Vehicle (1833). I served with the 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 1st Marine Division based out of Camp Pendleton, California. The assault amphibious vehicle is a 26 ton tracked vehicle that has land and water capabilities. we launch off the back of a Navy amphibious vessel, usually an LPD or an LSD. The vehicle can carry up to 21 fully equipped, combat ready infantry marines from the ship to the shore, then wherever they may need to go on land, and then back out to sea. It has a .50 caliber heavy machine gun and a .40 millimeter grenade launcher known as the MK 19. The hull is very thin aluminum and has bolt on armour called EEAK.

During the 4 years in the corps I went on 2 deployments overseas. The first one was with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. I was on the USS Cleveland (LPD-7). It was a 6 month deployment through the South Asian Pacific and the Middle East. During the deployment I went to Hawaii twice, Guam, Australia, Thailand twice, Singapore, Bahrain twice, Dubai (UAE), Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and East Timor. The second deployment was with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit on the USS Rushmore (LSD-47). During that deployment I visited Hawaii twice, Australia, Singapore, Bahrain twice, Kuwait twice, and Irag. I spent about 3 months in Iraq from March 21st until the beginning of May. Our objective included going into the southern port of Umm Zasr, Iraq to secure the city so we could have a port to get our ships into for supplies. Our second objective was the A-Zubyr Naval Facility. From there we went on to an-Nasiryah to help with the Jessica Lynch rescue where we stayed for about a month to keep the city secure so no more convoys would get attacked along their route through the city.

I got an honorable discharge in November of 2003 and decided I would like to follow again in my dads footsteps and become a taper and now work here with all of you at Olympic Wall Systems, Inc. It is my goal now to become a great taper with the company.