#FacesofNAU Get to Know Lumberjack Nick Avelar, U.S. Marine Corps veteran ⁠ ⁠ "I'm 1️⃣ year away from becoming the first person in my immediate family to graduate from college. ⁠ ⁠ 👀 It goes back to those values my dad taught me. ⁠ ⁠ He told me to look down the road of where you want to be. It might be far away, but as long as you have goals in place to achieve what you set out to do, and you keep checking off those goals, it doesn’t seem so unattainable.⁠ ⁠ 🇺🇸 Military life⁠ When you’re lifting a pack that’s over 100 pounds, carrying it from sundown to sunup and becoming more and more sleep-deprived, you learn the human mind is even stronger than the human body.⁠ ⁠ My team leader became hospitalized toward the end of my workup, and I took over. I was 20, and I had about 14 people reporting to me. ⁠ ⁠ Then I got deployed to Iraq in 2019, quick reaction force for adjacent units and security force for a small camp out there. I became a vehicle commander, engaging with the Iraqi forces...