LOCAL HERO | WAYNE CASEBEER
Original publish date: March-April 2020
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Where is he now? United States Marine Corps Veteran Wayne Casebeer’s story was recently published in the March/April 2020 issue of The Good Life. In the past few months, Casebeer has sought to develop a greater leadership role within the community. He was reelected as Junior Officer Surgeon of the West Fargo VFW Post 7564 and officially became active as Color Guard Commander for the organization. Casebeer has also been heavily involved with The Cooties Pack Rat 8, an association of the WF VFW that raised over $70,000 in 2019 to support cancer research. He was elected as Junior Officer Surgeon for the organization. Additionally, Casebeer was reelected as Senior Vice for Red River Raiders. His dog, Dan Daly, is now fully grown. Dan can often be seen outside walking with his family and has won the hearts of his neighbors. 48 / THE GOOD LIFE
WAYNE CASEBEER Leading Quietly, Responsibly, and Sincerely
PHOTO SUBMITTED BY: WAYNE CASEBEER
WRITTEN BY: ALEXIS SWENSON
Thirty-one-year-old Wayne Casebeer first joined the United States Marine Corps in part to honor the family legacy of serving his country and in part due to his competitive nature. "I come from a Navy family. My sister and I are very competitive. She went into the Army and I wanted to do something a bit more to compete with that, so I went into the Marine Corps. Ultimately, neither of us went into the Navy," said Casebeer. After graduating from high school in Alexandria, MN, Casebeer enlisted with the US Marine Corps where he completed 5 years of active duty followed by a couple of years in the Marine Forces Reserves. He served in Twentynine Palms, CA, Al Ambar Province Iraq, the reserve station in New Orleans, LA, and the reserve station in Minneapolis, MN. During active duty, Casebeer's role was in Communications and he was attached to an artillery battalion.
"They were using radios to do communications between different units in the Marine Corps which is extremely inefficient. Our goal was to bring the internet to artillery because we needed a way to coordinate fire. My five years were spent modernizing artillery. I went from high school to leading men in combat and that was pretty cool," said Casebeer. Aside from the sheer excitement of firing guns, Casebeer appreciated the incredible amount of things he learned in a small amount of time. "It wasn't just working on computers. You have to know how to fire machine guns, fire artillery, haul artillery, drive vehicles, how to load things on vehicles, how to eat, how to feed people, and more," said Casebeer. Above all else, the people were the most memorable for Casebeer. "I made a whole family. There were 15 of us that stuck together the whole time. When my battalion deployed, they split
