![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/49949157_431917750679747_3297572789178859520_n.jpg\")
<\/a>\nMissionary becomes a Marine<\/strong><\/p>\n
Long before tackling hypothermia labs \u2014 where Tara-Lyn had to sit in the bottom of a frigid pond for up to 15 minutes until she got hypothermia and then needed to revive herself as part of the winter training \u2014 she could be found playing in the forests of Columbia County.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always out in the woods, playing in the creeks and hunting with my pap,\u201d she said. \u201cI was holding a weapon by the age of three. Some of my favorite times were being out there with my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those moments were memorable for her father, Wes, as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI taught all my kids rappelling. We\u2019d spend a lot of time on the rocks in the mountains,\u201d he said. \u201cTara is very tough and very beautiful \u2014 a father\u2019s worse nightmare!\u201d<\/p>\n
Wes served in the Army \u2014 he was stationed in Germany when Tara-Lyn was born. She has seven younger siblings, including a brother who is currently in the military. A cousin and one of her grandfathers also have been involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always proud of the military members of my family, however I never thought I\u2019d go into the military myself,\u201d she said. \u201cMy passion was missionary work. Pretty much right after high school, I went into ministry with Youth With a Mission (YWAM) based in Montana and went all over the world, traveling and doing missionary work.\u201d<\/p>\n
During that time, she felt a desire to really challenge herself, and was drawn to the military.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided to enlist with the Marine Corps because it is the hardest,\u201d she said, joining early in 2014 and leaving for boot camp by October of that year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hated boot camp \u2014 it was such a stark contrast to the calm, loving environment in YWAM. I really felt out of my element,\u201d she said. \u201cSurprisingly, when I got to combat training, I fell in love with it.\u201d<\/p>\n She felt that was because in boot camp \u2014 you need to focus completely on yourself to survive each phase. In combat training, it is about taking care of others, something Tara-Lyn attributes to her faith-based passions via missionary work.<\/p>\n \u201cI became a squad leader without ever really trying to be one, and it was a big responsibility I enjoyed. I also loved the competition and learning the technical issues of what combat is,\u201d she said. \u201cI grew up playing paintball, and through combat training, I got to \u2018play\u2019 war.\u201d<\/p>\n Tara-Lyn was then sent to specialty school to be a heavy equipment mechanic, servicing John Deere, Caterpillar and other pieces of heavy equipment affiliated with the Marines. Three months later, she was transported to Okinawa, Japan, for one of the Marine\u2019s most grueling experiences \u2014 jungle warfare training.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was pretty wild. I was rappelling down into the jungle and sleeping on the jungle floor where even the smallest of lizards can be very poisonous. It was an experience I\u2019ll never forget. My favorite part is that there is this algae there that glows at night \u2014 it\u2019s like looking at the stars on the ground,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was very challenging and took a lot out of me, but it also helped get a feel for intense trainings. When I heard about the mountain leaders training and that no female Marine had passed both, I decided I needed to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Tara-Lyn was accepted pretty quickly \u2014 partially because so few want to commit to a program so remote in the California back country.<\/p>\n \u201cSome call it the base where careers die because it is so far out there in the middle of nowhere surrounded by mountains and woods,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it didn\u2019t phase me. Thanks to growing up like I did in central Pennsylvania, I learned to really appreciate being out in the country like that.\u201d<\/p>\n The summer mountain leader course was something Tara-Lyn said she loved \u2014 it was full of climbing, hiking, rappelling and crevasse rescues. Nearly every part of that session is testable, including blindfolded knot-tying sessions \u2014 \u201cthey\u2019d tell us to tie a butterfly knot blindfolded in 30 seconds and then we\u2019d move onto the next\u201d \u2014 and performing different cliff-side rescues off Mount Shasta, including rappelling down a cliff with \u201cjust two ropes\u201d and minimal gear.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved climbing in the summer. I found I was really good at it being so tiny and flexible. Some of the guys had long arms that helped them with climbing, but I was able to come up with some creative ways to get up the mountain,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019d do night climbs, too, going up cliffs in the dark. I loved sleeping out some nights under the stars with no tents.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite having so many memorable moments from the session, there were countless reminders of the intensity of the training and how the elements could change things quickly, she added.<\/p>\n \u201cOne night, it got so cold, a lot of the guys got dropped from the training due to getting hypothermia. A group of us were huddled together and we could hear them calling in people to evacuate them,\u201d she said. \u201cWe talked, tried to keep warm and were careful with how we dressed in layers. At one point, a little frog hopped up and was trying to get into our sleeping bags because it was so cold.\u201d<\/p>\n The winter mountain leader training course was different for Tara-Lyn.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile everything is testable in the summer course, the winter session is one you have to survive through,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to do the summer course for myself, but the winter course I did because as I got to know the other Marines, our base is really tapped out. The men instructors would go out on a course of 15-20 days in the mountains away from their families. I wanted to help out so they weren\u2019t so strapped and needing to sacrifice so much of their family time.\u201d<\/p>\n Tara-Lyn has felt herself become more grounded since her summer leader hiking encounter with God.<\/p>\n \u201cLiving in this culture it can be a struggle. I came here in an attempt to do my own will. I jumped out of what God has planned, but He is going to use it,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the military \u2014 and even in day-to-day life \u2014 we can find ourselves with intense tunnel vision on what\u2019s next to accomplish and what needs to be done to get there.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a Christian, though, the mindset is different. It is about having a heart for those around you and sacrificing what we want for what God wants in our lives. It is very humbling.\u201d<\/p>\n Tara-Lyn calls her outdoors revelation her \u201cEcclesiastes moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe spend so much time trying to do things on our own, with our own vision, and we forget that God has a vision that is much bigger,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is hard to ask for help \u2014 to realize that He can give us strength beyond anything we can do on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n Tara-Lyn\u2019s time with the Marines runs until August of 2020, at which time she plans to return to the YWAM missions program, using what she\u2019s learned from these courses to help get supplies and God\u2019s word to those in the most remote areas of the world.<\/p>\n Shouldering 85 pounds of gear, the 5-foot-3, 115-pound Sgt. Tara-Lyn Baker skied up the snowy slopes of California\u2019s Mount Shasta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[950,41,951,943,945,947,946,944,551,948,949],"class_list":["post-1269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-walk","tag-ecclesiastes","tag-god","tag-gods-purpose","tag-marine","tag-mountain-leader","tag-refocus","tag-summer","tag-tara-lyn-baker","tag-winter","tag-youth-with-a-mission","tag-ywam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
\nNew experiences<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nMountain leaders experience<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nResetting priorities<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"