Desiree Kells Desiree Ornelas USMC Highland High School The AV Hub Lancaster California
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Desiree Kells (Ornelas) USMC Drill Instructor from Highland High School
 PROUD DAD - Robert Ornelaz of Palmdale holds a picture of his daughter, Desiree Kells, and a Marine Corps drill instruction handbook she sent to him upon her graduation from drill instructor school. EVELYN KRISTO/Valley Press |
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Monday, March 7, 2005.
By JAMES LOUGHRIE
Valley Press Staff Writer
When Desiree Ornelaz was a student at Highland High School, a recruiter from the Marine Corps spoke to her English class. "He said it was one of the hardest challenges you'll ever get in life," she recalled.
"I didn't have any direction or anything planned after high school," she said, so she enlisted when she graduated from Highland in 1997. The Marines offered the structure she needed and the challenge she wanted.
"That was my first response to go try something hard," she said. Speaking by telephone from her home in Beaufort, S.C., Desiree Kells (her married name) said she owes a lot to the Marine Corps and wants to give something back.
That's why she wanted to become a drill instructor. Though the training was rigorous, the 99-pound Kells knew she wanted to do it.
When she graduated from drill instructors school in December, Desiree Kells had overcome several obstacles. As she entered Parris Island for training in 1997, the then-Desiree Ornelaz had been without a strong female presence in her life.
"I grew up without my mom really around," she said.
"My drill instructor gave me a motherly feeling," Kells said of the way her DI pushed and encouraged the young women in boot camp.
Kells said it is something she wants to do for other young women.
"That's actually something I've always wanted for myself," she said. "I always wanted to do that for other females."
But the course to becoming a drill instructor was not always a smooth one. Kells first entered the 11-week course in 2003, but only made it to nine weeks.
"They dropped me from the school because they said I couldn't do one of the obstacles," she recalled.
After hearing that, she spent the next year training for the course. Her husband pushed her to keep trying and to accomplish her goal.
"If it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't have gone back to DI school the second time," she said.
After all, she made a promise. Upon graduating from boot camp in 1997, she promised her drill instructor that she, too, would become one. With support from her husband and friends, Kells went back and made good on her promise.
Her father, Robert Ornelaz, is proud of her, and thinks her story of accomplishment needs to get out there.
"It's such a success story I think people need to hear it," he said. "I can't believe what she's gone through and what she's endured, and what she's doing for other people."
Kells' life in the Marines is not an average one, but it is the one she was looking for.
While stationed in Twenty-Nine Palms, she met Ryan Kells, who also is a sergeant in the Marines. The two married and have a daughter, Gina.
Desiree Kells now is in Marine Corps Water Survival Training, a rigorous six-week course that only six people in her drill instructors class qualified for.
"It's hard," she said. "They say it's the second-hardest course in the Marines."
Being accepted means she must swim 500 meters in less than 11 minutes.
In the class, Marines must retrieve a 10-pound brick from the bottom of a pool and swim 50 meters with it. They also must tow the brick 50 meters.
For the time being, Kells said she wants to remain a drill instructor. But she has the future planned out: "I would like to become senior drill instructor. After that I'd probably like to go overseas and see what's over there," she said. The destination she wants most is Japan.
She's already done some recruiting, including at Highland High School after she graduated from boot camp.
She and her husband want to stay in the Corps for at least 20 years.
"I can't see myself doing anything else right now because the Marine Corps has been very good to me," she said.
"I've got to give it back everything I can."
Through the Marines, Kells has gained a family of her own, education, a sense of accomplishment and self-esteem.
"It's given me the self-esteem to go up to people and say, 'Hey, do you want to become a Marine?' "
