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'Finding Your Tribe' In An Unlikely Place

StoryCorps
Marcus Barnes and Jacquelyn Wheeler

“Being a teenager is tough, in and of itself,” says Marcus Barnes. “But struggling with my sexuality and not being comfortable with it… I went through some tough times as a teenager. I [am] also a person of color. I was so uncomfortable with myself for whatever reason.”

Barnes saw the Marines as a way to maybe, just maybe, fix all of that.

“You drive down the street, you see a billboard of a Marine… you see the uniform, and this steely-eyed look on their face, and I just thought, ‘I want that.’”

Little did Barnes know that joining the Marines would help him find a support network… just not the one he thought.

Click on the audio link above to hear Marcus Barnes interviewed by his friend Jacquelyn Wheeler, recorded on February 7, 2016 at the Storycorps Mobile Booth in San Antonio, TX.