Navy Cross recipient becomes driver for Kent - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Navy Cross recipient becomes driver for Kent

If the leatherneck driving the sergeant major of the Marine Corps’ car looks familiar, it’s probably because of what’s pinned above the left breast pocket of his service Charlie uniform.

Sgt. Maj. Carlton Kent, the Corps’ top enlisted Marine, tapped Navy Cross recipient Sgt. Jeremiah Workman to be his official driver after Workman expressed interest in the position.

Workman, who earned the nation’s second-highest award for combat valor during the 2004 battle of Fallujah as a squad leader with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, began his duties June 11.

“I haven’t even driven him anywhere yet. I’m a greenhorn. I’m still learning the routes,” he said. “But I’m looking forward to traveling a bit, working with the sergeant major and seeing the Marine Corps at this level.”

Workman said “it’s an honor and a privilege” to serve with Kent, a “Marine’s Marine” he first met “eating the same dirt” in Fallujah on Dec. 23, 2004, “the day we all got whacked.”

Workman followed his tour at 3/5 with drill instructor duty at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., before being temporarily reassigned for medical reasons to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va.

As the sergeant major’s driver, he’s now permanently assigned to the Pentagon, where “you need a compass to get around” when you’re new, he said.