Former infantryman Staff Sgt. Derek Cohen, a 2017 Marine Corps Times Service Member of the Year Honorable Mention, works as a career planner, helping Marines prepare for a future both inside and outside of the Marine Corps.
Cohen enlisted in 2003 and deployed four times, twice each to Iraq and Afghanistan during the intervening years.
During that time and following a devastating gunshot wound injury in Iraq, Cohen became a Marine Corps Martial Arts instructor, financial planner and certified fitness and nutrition expert, all in an effort to help fellow Marines succeed.
Cohen said the 2006 injury "forced me to grow up real quick." The subsequent two-year recovery was a battle he won despite a doctor telling him he'd never do a pullup again.
He now helps Marines who struggle to meet fitness and weight goals with exercise instruction, guidance and nutrition planning.
After watching fellow Marines blow combat pay and re-enlistment bonuses on new cars and motorcycles, Cohen began learning the fundamentals of financial planning and budgeting, and now offers those lessons to Marines who elect to stay in or get out of the Corps.
On top of his career planner duties and work with individual Marines, Cohen and his wife volunteer in the community. Last year, they spent more than 130 hours working with the Humane Society in Oceanside, California.
Cohen's boss at Marine Corps Career Planning Retention Program, Daniel Mintz, said that the staff sergeant pushed a 180-degree turn in motivation among the Marines in the unit shortly after he arrived.
"He changed it from a lethargic to aggressive environment," Mintz said, all while maintaining a 100 percent completion rate for all required monthly interviews.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
