Oklahoma Marine Chosen To Guard The President

Friday, April 27th 2007, 8:00 pm

By: News On 6

An Oklahoma Marine receives a prestigious assignment. The Tulsan is joining an elite group of Marines charged with guarding the President. Eighteen year old Eric Goolsby was picked from a group of more than 200 recruits. The News On 6â€™s Ashli Sims reports heâ€™s a stand-up guy, who's willing to take a bullet to protect the President, but he didn't always walk the straight and narrow.

Their assignment, protect the Commander In Chief at all costs. Only 2% of Marines get chosen for the Presidential Guard, and one Tulsa mother was shocked to find out her little boy will be one of them.

"He wrote me a letter and said an investigator is coming to talk to you. So say nice things,â€ said Marine mom Angela Sanders.

Angela Sanders says it's the latest sign that her son has truly grown into a man.

"He's not always been a perfect angel so this has really turned him around," she said.

Sanders says her son has always been ornery, but things changed for the worse when his father died.

"After their dad died, he had a really hard time and he decided school wasn't for him,â€ said Sanders. â€œAnd I would take him to school and he would leave school."

Eric Goolsby had practically dropped out of school, and was on his way to becoming a statistic when he enrolled in Alternative School and started to turn his life around.

"The teachers there and the staff were just wonderful. And they helped him get through school, and be motivated and want to finish," Sanders said.

Goolsby finished two years of high school in eight months, and left to join the Marines the day after graduation. Now he's being honored with the prestigious assignment of protecting the President. It's enough to make even a big sister sing his praises.

"I'm pretty proud of him. He was definitely a hard brother to get along with,â€ said Ericâ€™s sister Ashlea Goolsby. â€œAnd since he's been away, I've really learned to respect the person that he really is inside."

Angela Sanders says between Alternative School and the Marines her son has found motivation and direction. The teenager, who didn't want to go to school, now wants to go to college to become a military officer. Soon, he'll be heading to six weeks of training for the security guard and could be at the President's side by this summer.

Watch the video: Oklahoma Marine Chosen For The Presidential Guard