A McDonald’s Woman Has Served Marine Corps Presidents | News, Sports, Jobs

While in the Marines, Courtney Delka was assigned to a special unit that traveled with the presidential party. She worked alongside Marine One, greeting Presidents Bush and Obama as they stepped off the plane.

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McDONALD – When Courtney Delka graduated from Girard High School in 2006, her future options were to go to college or try military service.

“I tried college for about a semester at Youngstown State University,” Delka said “It wasn’t something that interested me at the time.”

Delka said her cousin, who had enlisted a few months earlier, convinced her to speak to a Navy recruiter in late 2006.

“On the spur of the moment, I enlisted – on the spot”, she says.

Delka left for training camp on January 8, 2007 in Parris Island, South Carolina. She stayed there for 13 weeks and graduated in the spring.

She talked about some of the toughest parts of training.

“I wasn’t a big fan of swimming and just passed basic training camp qualifications,” she laughs, noting that combat Marines generally have to excel in water training.

Instead of being a “struggle” Marine, his enlistment placed Delka in a military police school in Missouri for a few months.

“While I was there, a mission supporting the President’s travel team recruited me for their outfit,” she says. “There was a huge background check and I had to get a security clearance.”

A SAILOR

Delka managed to travel with the president, accompanying Marine One, stationed in Quantico, Virginia.

“We were the Marines standing in front of the helicopter and saluting the President as he walked in and out. We were basically a support unit,” Delka said, noting that it wasn’t a security detail — the Secret Service handled it. On the contrary, his unit remained with the helicopter.

Under two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, she was able to travel on 12 support missions.

“We were only able to see the president when he was coming and going from the helicopter,” Delka said, noting that she had been able to participate in presidential retirement missions four times from Camp David, Maryland.

Delka said her assignments also took her to Germany and London in 2008. She said there was time for sightseeing; she visited Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and London Bridge and the royal castles in England.

“It was a pretty busy unit, but pretty quiet. There weren’t too many stressful situations to worry about,” Delka said, noting that she had met with the general managers, but wished, in hindsight, that she had taken more photos.

“It would have been good to document these experiences. That was probably my biggest regret coming out of the Marine Corps,” she says.

After traveling with the presidential party for 2½ years, Delka changed jobs and became a corporate clerk for a unit at Quantico’s Marine Base.

“There was a lot of office and paperwork. I had to be responsible for considering every Marine,” Delka said, noting that some of the skills she learned as a clerk transferred well into her civilian jobs when she was released in 2012.

BEST FRIENDS

Some of Delka’s best friends are still the Marines she served with.

“There are a lot of people I keep in touch with. There’s no brotherhood like being a Marine” she said, noting that she is still friends with those at boot camp. “These are people who have impacted many areas of my life.”

Delka also said she hasn’t seen many instances of discrimination or harassment from male Marines. She noted that while she was in the unit of 150 assigned to the president, the unit was made up of approximately 25% women. “The women there were pretty tight-knit and glued together most of the time,” she says.

In the 10 years since leaving the service, Delka has built a family of three children, ages 9 to 13, whom she now leads in a home at McDonald’s.

Delka said she was a special education teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah, before returning to the Mahoning Valley in June 2020. She now works as a line manager in food packaging for Mom’s Meals in North Jackson.

Her mother, JoMarie Nagle of Warren, said she noticed a difference in her daughter’s acceptance of discipline since her military service. Nagle said that growing up, Delka had a hard time being told what to do, especially by her mother.

“After watching her complete her basic training,” Nagle said, “I became extremely proud and amazed that she went through this. I know I couldn’t have done some of those training exercises, especially the swimming.

Delka agrees with her mother.

“The Marines made me a lot more responsible. Coming out of high school, I wasn’t very mature. It made me proud of myself and gave me a sense of who I was. she says. “And the pride instilled in me has never left me. I still have tears in my eyes hearing the Marine Corps anthem. The pride of being a Marine never leaves you.

gvogrin@tribtoday.com