This past fall, during a particularly challenging time in Catherine Martinelli’s life, her friend and fellow Marine Soledad Jackson was there to help. Of course, it should not have come as a surprise for Martinelli, because two decades earlier, she did the exact same thing for Jackson.
“She's my Marine sister for the rest of my life. Even if I don't talk to her for five years, I know that she's always there,” Jackson said.
Martinelli and Jackson met in the late 1980s at Camp Pendleton, back when being a woman in the Corps was still a rarity.
“I think when Sole and I were in, there was like 6% women in the Marine Corps, so not very many at all,” Martinelli said.
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The two bonded instantly. Though Martinelli moved on after four years, Jackson made the Marines her career. The two didn’t stay in close contact after that. In fact, they had rarely spoken over the previous twenty years when, in 2004, Jackson, living in North Carolina, called Martinelli in California.
“She let me know that she was getting deployed to Iraq and wanted to know if I'd go to North Carolina and watch her kids during her first deployment,” Martinelli said. “It took me about five minutes and I called her right back and I said ‘I'll be there in two weeks.’”
Martinelli put her life on pause for an entire year to care for Jackson’s children until she returned. Martinelli says she was simply following what she had learned while in the Marines: stepping up with a comrade is in need.
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Once Jackson returned from Iraq, however, Martinelli and Jackson once again went their separate ways, rarely communicating. Until, that is, this past fall when Martinelli was the one needing help. A particularly severe trauma in her life had led to a difficult battle with anorexia.
“I got down to 85 pounds, and I was in the hospital in and out a few times. Right now, I'm at 91 pounds,” she said. “I'm working on it. It's a struggle.”
Jackson stepped up to support her fellow Marine, booking a flight for Martinelli to spend Thanksgiving with her family in Ohio.
The reunion not only rekindled their sisterhood but put Martinelli back in touch with Jackson’s two children, now grown up, whom she had taken care of years ago.
“She gave up her life to come and be with my two small children, not because she had to,” Jackson said.
For Martinelli, the love and support from the Jackson family have become a source of strength in her ongoing journey to good health. “When you say family, Marine family, there's nothing better than that because it's for life,” Martinelli said.
