A life of service in education and the military

Dereck Enderle, agricultural science teacher and campus military liaison at Seagoville High School, likes to joke with his wife that he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps to impress her. 

In truth, he said, he enlisted in 1999 after a year of college left him uncertain about his future. 

“I come from a long line of service members,” he said. “My grandfathers fought in World War II and the Korean War, and my father served in Vietnam. I was a year into college and didn’t know what to do. One Monday, I saw a Marine recruiter, and by Sunday, I was in boot camp.”

At Seagoville, he wants his legacy to be one of expanding possibilities for students,  helping them realize there are many valuable paths and encouraging them to build successful futures no matter what they choose.

“Not everybody needs to go to college. We need all types of people — even in the trades, like plumbers and electricians,” he said. 

Teaching turned out to be the path for him. In 2004, Enderle completed Dallas ISD’s Alternative Certification Program and was hired as a teacher. However, he was deployed in Operations Iraqi Freedom before the school year began.

“The thing that I want to push is that we’re not alone out here,” he said. “A lot of times military men don’t let things bother them. For me, it’s about working with those veterans and letting them know, ‘Hey, there’s somebody you can talk to.’”

With Veteran’s Day on the horizon, Enderle’s advice to support veterans is simple. 

“You may not have the solution to their problems, but you can be a shoulder to lean on and a vital reminder that they’re not alone. Sometimes that support is what makes all the difference,” he said.