Young Marines a Guiles Family Legacy

As we’ve extensively noted in our previous features on local Young Marines, these young men and women accomplish a jaw-dropping amount of community service.

Children are eligible to make a long-term commitment to the organization from age 8, though many don’t enroll that early.

Sergeant Major Joshua Guiles, 19, and Master Gunnery Sergeant Nicholas Guiles, 17, are set apart as they’ve been with the organization virtually since they were eligible from ages 10 and 8, respectively. When your mom serves as adjutant of the local unit, you can see why.

“Joshua and Nicholas are two outstanding Young Marines who have made it their responsibility to educate and train new recruits in the Temecula Valley to be self-disciplined and exemplify leadership and teamwork,” Stephanie Guiles said. “They are at recruit training every weekend from 0900-1500 for nine weeks, (totaling) over 144 hours.”

While previous YoungMarines honorees like and have catalogued hundreds of community service hours, the Guiles brothers have tallied thousands.

Between them, the Guiles brothers have run the gamut of potential community work between helping a veteran with his home, fire clean-ups, city clean-ups and volunteering as instructors at leadership schools. They’ve graduated from junior, senior and advanced leadership schools.

They’ve worked 14 American Cancer Society Relay For Life events, most recently doing night security. They set up shelters for displaced people during fires and have hosted blood drives for the American Red Cross. They‘ve served on military color guards on various occasions for many different celebrations including little league opening day, retirement ceremonies, memorial services and candlelight vigils.

With Munoz in tow, they interviewed veterans for the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project. They participated in Operation Guardian Angel for victims of Hurricane Katrina, Operation Pages which involved sending over 10,000 books to troops in Iraq, Operation DVD  where they met marines before their deployment and directly donated DVDS to enjoy and Operation Homefront where they gave backpacks and supplies to military-dependent families. They’ve also helped Rancho Damacitas with Christian concerts, the USO and Toys for Tots.

Their journeys have taken them from Hawaii to Washington, D.C., attending events like the dedication of a World War II memorial, NASA space camp and Revolutionary War Camp.

In all that time, they accumulated more than 3,000 community service hours.

“They have done some amazing things as Young Marines,” Guiles said. “It’s quite a long list.”

This summer will be their last with the Young Marines before they plan to move on to the Marine Corps proper. Joshua, a senior at Great Oak High School, may be going to Virginia to volunteer at the National Leadership Academy. Nicholas, graduating a year early from Rancho Vista High School, plans on working a cattle drive in Montana.

Many readers probably wonder why someone so young would constantly be driven to work, work, work. But in the Young Marines, there’s always a surreal experience on the horizon.

“Currently, as of this morning,” Guiles said last week, “Joshua left with a small cadre of Young Marines to Iwo Jima. He’s flying to Hawaii and then to Guam. They will be staying in Guam and then they will go over to Iwo Jima and climb to the top of Mt. Surabachi.

“A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

This is the third installment in our ‘Whiz Kid’ series about the Temecula Valley Young Marines, a government-sponsored, national youth program for boys and girls between the ages of 8-18. You'll find the first two installments linked to the right under the map.