Fresh off the Boat

I'm Elliott Deins. A born-and-raised Floridian, Navy veteran, recent University of Oregon graduate and the new reporter at the Saratoga Sun.

After a childhood of fishing, boating and diving around the Gulf Coast of Florida, I attempted community college. After seeing my terrible grades six weeks into my first semester, I enlisted into the Navy serving five years as an infantry corpsman.

In 2018, I deployed as part of a Marine Expeditionary Unit - spending six months squeezed on a ship floating around the Mediterranean. With nothing else to do underway, I rediscovered my fondness for reading an...