Local News

Elkins resident’s service in Marines led to career guiding satellites

Editor's note: This article is part of The Inter-Mountain's Unsung Heroes series for 2020, which features veterans in our area sharing first-hand accounts of their military service. The series will be published through Veterans Day.

ELKINS -- For Elkins resident Ron Bodkin, his four years in the Marine Corps gave him the skills and training he needed for his entire life.

Bodkin graduated from Elkins High School in 1976 and enlisted in the Marines that same year. After graduating from basic training in Parris Island, South Carolina, Bodkin went to the Marines Corps Electronic School in Twentynine Palms, California. He went there expecting to take 11 months of training, but never left during his four years in the Marines.

"They wanted to make me an instructor for the electronic school after my training, but headquarters of the Marine Corps said no because I hadn't been out in the fleet," said Bodkin. "So they kept me there at the school maintaining the equipment and that's where I spent my entire enlistment.

"The first year I was assigned to that duty, was the first time they ever ran a class and didn't lose any lab time on the equipment. I made sure it was up 100 percent all the time and running right."

Some of the equipment Bodkin was responsible for included ground radar, which consisted of air search radar and people finder radar.

"It was transportable and small and it could pick up vehicles and people moving," he said. "It would identify their location so you can call in an order for artillery to counter fire on them."

Bodkin also worked in artillery electronics, which consisted of weather balloon systems, a laser designating system, and a radar chronograph which measured how fast the rounds came out of a barrel.

"I worked on a lot of diverse pieces of equipment in the Marines," he said. "When I got out the frequencies and tracking systems for satellites that I had worked with, it helped when I started my first job fixing equipment at a satellite ground station in Etam.

"The last 10 years I've been sitting at a console flying satellites, but before that for 30 years I did repair work "

Bodkin currently works as a satellite controller for Intelsat out of Washington, D.C., where he flies and monitors a variety of different satellites doing many different jobs. Intelsat provides commercial service to Europe and all over the world.

Although Bodkin is grateful for the skills he learned while in the Marine Corps, he admits the most important thing he took away had nothing do with electronics or satellites.

"The thing I think I learned the most is people," he said. "I learned a lot of life lessons there and I value that more than anything else. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the training I got, but the life experiences I received, I value more than anything."

Bodkin has been married to his wife Cindy for 35 years and the couple has four children, three of whom also served in the military. His sons Zach and Chris were both in the Marine Corps, while one daughter, Justina, was in the Army. The couple's other daughter, Kassandra, is a lawyer.