Annual Pub 2023 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 53
SUMMER 2023 MAGAZINE
I
The more you read from Justin Atkins’ Department of Veterans
Affairs 841-page personal health record – the 39-year-old
Marine veteran receives full disability payments after suffering
combat-related impairments that substantially limit one or more
life activities – the more you marvel at the fact that he was able
to begin his 昀rst year of studies at the Kirk Kerkorian School of
Medicine last July. “I actually feel really good right now,” says
Atkins, who has also suffered chronic back pain from combatrelated injuries and lost a front tooth (since replaced) to shrapnel.
“I’m exercising, running … I love my classes.”
Unexpected twists and turns – Atkins says that’s what his life has
been all about. While some of the unexpected has been far more
painful than he’d like, he says his life now has been blessed. His
second marriage is going beautifully, and he points out that he
has received a full scholarship, along with a stipend, for medical
school through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health
Professional Scholarship Program. “Under the program, I’ll be a
physician for six years with the VA.”
Atkins, the father of three children, grew up outside Detroit. His
father was a General Motors (GM) assembly line worker and
his mother a school bus driver who also worked serving school
lunches. He never thought he’d go to college, let alone medical
school.
“College wasn’t something we talked about at home,” he says.
Atkins was good but not great in high school football, baseball,
and hockey. He was ready to follow his father to the assembly
line at GM after he completed his senior year of high school.
That all changed, however, after al-Qaeda terrorists carried out
four coordinated suicide attacks in the U.S. that killed nearly
3,000 people in 2001. Instead of heading home from school,
Atkins and friends headed for military recruiting stations to enlist
to 昀ght terrorists.
Atkins wouldn9t go to boot camp for basic training until he 昀nished
his senior year of high school. Then, after three months of basic,
eight months of advanced infantry training, and a short stint
guarding part of the country’s nuclear arsenal at a submarine
base in Georgia, Atkins, then a corporal, found himself leading
other Marines as an infantry squad leader in Iraq.
Soon after arriving in the Middle Eastern country, as he helped
secure a desert village so U.S. Navy physicians could help
civilians injured by a devastating attack by insurgents, Atkins
昀rst developed an interest in a career in medicine.
