{"id":164,"date":"2017-11-08T19:20:45","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T19:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/2017\/11\/08\/2017118humans-of-hamden-shamar-farmer\/"},"modified":"2020-09-05T19:51:50","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T19:51:50","slug":"2017118humans-of-hamden-shamar-farmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/2017\/11\/08\/2017118humans-of-hamden-shamar-farmer\/","title":{"rendered":"Humans of Hamden: Shamar Farmer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div\n        class=\"\n          image-block-outer-wrapper\n          layout-caption-below\n          design-layout-inline\n          \n          \n          \n        \"\n        data-test=\"image-block-inline-outer-wrapper\"\n    ><\/p>\n<figure\n            class=\"\n              sqs-block-image-figure\n              intrinsic\n            \"\n            style=\"max-width:500.0px;\"\n        ><\/p>\n<div\n              \n                style=\"padding-bottom:66.5999984741211%;\"\n              \n              class=\"\n                image-block-wrapper\n                \n          \n        \n                has-aspect-ratio\n              \"\n              data-animation-role=\"image\"\n              \n  data-animation-override\n\n          ><br \/>\n            <noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_7181.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_7181.jpg\" \/><\/noscript><img class=\"thumb-image\" data-src=\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_7181.jpg\" data-image=\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_7181.jpg\" data-image-dimensions=\"500x333\" data-image-focal-point=\"0.5,0.5\" alt=\"IMG_7181.jpg\" data-load=\"false\" data-image-id=\"5a09ba010d929719784036cb\" data-type=\"image\" \/>\n          <\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<p>By Angela Varney<\/p>\n<p>Shamar Farmer had been through 26 foster homes, four group homes and two homeless shelters before serving four years in the Marine Corps. He is now 27 years old and a senior political science major at Quinnipiac University, still celebrating his adoption three years ago with his family.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cI\u2019ve known my family since I was eleven,\u201d Farmer said. \u201cI was supposed to be adopted by them, actually, but it didn\u2019t happen until I was 24. Being in all of those homes and stuff left gaps in my education, so the learning curve was different for me.\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>Due to the time spent cycling in and out of foster homes throughout high school, Farmer fell behind in his classes, leaving his teachers to believe he may not be able to graduate on time with the rest of his class. He wouldn\u2019t take no for an answer. Farmer volunteered to take community college classes to make up for what he had missed and, despite his teachers\u2019 doubts, he succeeded.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cI ended up doing it, which, kind of blew me away that I actually did it,\u201d Farmer said, smiling. He continued to attend community college classes upon graduation but soon realized it wasn\u2019t for him.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cI was in class one day and said, \u2018I\u2019m not going to be here,\u2019 so I left. Walking down the street, I saw this guy in a tan uniform,\u201d Farmer said, \u201cWe started talking and, next thing I know, I\u2019m signed up for boot camp. That fast.\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>After completing boot camp, Farmer spent a few years traveling within the United States before being deployed to Japan where he would spend a year and a half immersed in their culture. He was there in 2011 when the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit the country.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cIt scared the shit out of me,\u201d Farmer said, shaking his head. \u201cWhen it first happened, I was coming off of Mt. Fuji after warfare training. I went to the grocery store and thought that the elevation change was why I was about ready to faint and pass out because I was just shaking.\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>He realized the elevation change was not to blame, once he began to notice the look on everyone else\u2019s faces: terror.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cWe all ran outside and the next thing I know, I see cars shifting parking spaces,\u201d Farmer said. \u201cI was like, \u2018Woah, that\u2019s crazy! It\u2019s like the world is going to open up and swallow us whole.\u2019\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Within a week, Farmer and his fellow service members drove 22 hours across mainland Japan to go to Sendai Airport to go help clean up the rubble so the U.S. could fly in supplies.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>During his service, Farmer was one of the youngest lance corporals in the Marine Corps\u2019 history to be awarded his black belt red tab in the Marine Martial Arts Program after training while being a chaplain bodyguard in Japan. This, Farmer said, is the fondest memory of his service. The hardest? Losing brothers and sisters that he served with.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cWhen you try and tell a story about someone that you have lost \u2026 it\u2019s very realistic,\u201d Farmer said, \u201cIt brings you back to reality when you\u2019re thinking about the great times you\u2019ve had with that person before realizing, \u2018Oh wait. They\u2019re not here anymore.\u2019 But, you\u2019re here, and you\u2019re going to do the best you can to live up to their memory.\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>Farmer said he has learned a lot throughout his lifetime, but the biggest lesson he learned was about the importance of humility.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cBe humble,\u201d he suggested.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>Farmer acted on his own advice after being thanked for meeting for the interview.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cMost veterans I\u2019ve had the conversation with don\u2019t really know what to say when people say thank you,\u201d Farmer said,\u201cIt\u2019s not like we expect it, so we say thank you because it\u2019s all about (all of) us.\u201d<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Angela Varney Shamar Farmer had been through 26 foster homes, four group homes and two homeless shelters before serving four years in the Marine Corps. He is now 27 years old and a senior political science major at Quinnipiac University, still celebrating his adoption three years ago with his family.&nbsp;\u201cI\u2019ve known my family since &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/2017\/11\/08\/2017118humans-of-hamden-shamar-farmer\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Humans of Hamden: Shamar Farmer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3210,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/3210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}