Marine handles communications

Lance Corporal Adrian A. Shaw, U.S. Marine Corps. Photo provided Lance Corporal Adrian A. Shaw, U.S. Marine Corps, helps maintain the electronic communications that are vital in the ultramodern and high tech war being fought in Iraq.

Entering the Marine Corps on August 15, 2001, in peace time, "Spud" Shaw found himself, after September 11, 2001, in a wartime Marine Corps while still in boot camp.

"It sure changed everyone's outlook on our training," he told his grandfather, Bob Grooney of Sisters. "Now all we're going through (in boot camp) has more meaning because there is a reason for it."

Shaw moved to Sisters in 1979 when he was a year old. He went to school through his junior year in Sisters and graduated from Wenatchee High School in Washington.

After completing basic training at Camp Pendleton, California, Shaw went to specialist school in Maryland at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds for training in air conditioning and generator maintenance. That specialty is vital to keeping computers up and running in action.

He has been based in Camp LeJuene, North Carolina for the past year and left for Kuwait on March 5. He is presently assigned to the 8th Communication Battalion now serving in Iraq.

Spud's grandparents and former guardians, Bob and Claudia Grooney "are grateful to all those who have taken time to write Spud and making him feel he's not forgotten in Sisters.