Shawn Kelly (Corporals Corner)

Shawn Kelly is an outdoorsman, and a popular YouTuber.

He has more than a million subscribers on his YouTube channel, ‘Corporals Corner.’

Introduction-

Shawn Kelly was born on 27 May 1977.

He hails from the United States.

In 1995, at 18, Shawn joined the United States Marine Corps.

He served here for four years and a couple of months, he extended in these months to travel to his unit back to Okinawa, Japan.

Shawn served as a Corporal (E-4) and as a 0311 Infantry Team Leader and was discharged in August 1999.

As he wanted to become a police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), he decided to attend a school to study for a criminal justice degree using his GI Bill.

9/11-

Due to the unfortunate 9/11 in 2001, Shawn was recalled by the United States government into military service.

He was involuntarily recalled in support of the Operation Enduring Freedom for the period 26 November 2001 to 25 November 2002.

Thanks to this, Shawn got a chance to honorably serve the second time and he served as an infantry rifleman (0311) with the Military Police.

He was honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps on 12 January 2003.

Then, Shawn became a Structural Welder and at that time, he used to run his own business and later, he became a Certified Welding Inspector.

He also became a Concrete Inspector, Masonry Inspector and an Epoxy Inspector but at 44, he realised that he can’t sustain these jobs forever and so, he quit these jobs.

Love for survival-

After getting discharged from the Marine Corps, Shawn started reading a lot of survival books only to find that most of them were just regurgitations of the military training manuals.

So, he realised that he couldn’t learn new things only by relying on books and so, he decided to attend a survival school.

At that time, Shawn was living in California and researched survival schools and then, joined Cody Lundin’s Aboriginal Living Skills School in Arizona.

Another reason for him to join Aboriginal Living Skills School was at that time, he was frequenting the deserts of California, Nevada and Arizona and felt that he lacked survival skills in deserts and so, in order to learn the skills, he joined the school.

From 10 July to 16 July 2011, Shawn completed The Self-Reliance Symposium course under the instruction of Cody Lundin.

From 13 May to 19 May 2012, he completed The Desert Drifter course.

In 2012, Shawn also completed other courses like Light My Fire! Catching Critters, The Arizona Combo Special and he also did another course in a park.

Joining Pathfinder-

After completing six courses from Aboriginal Living Skills School, Shawn started travelling across the United States and visited places in Louisiana, Ohio, etc. and observed that the terrains are different in these states.

And so, he decided to attend a survival school in Ohio to up his survival skills in Ohio.

Shawn visited The Pathfinder School in Southeast Ohio and was very impressed by their teaching.

So, he joined the school and decided to become an instructor after completing the courses.

Between 2015 to 2017, Shawn completed various courses in The Pathfinder School like Pathfinder Basics Training, Pathfinder Scout Training, Advanced Survival (completed in Georgia with 3.5 CEU) and Wilderness First Responder (in Ohio with 4.0 CEU).

Then, he became an Instructor at The Pathfinder School LLC and in January 2019, he took the lead position at this school.

Starting Corporals Corner-

Shawn started his YouTube channel, ‘Corporals Corner‘ on 11 July 2009.

On 28 December 2010, he published the first video on his YouTube channel titled ‘luther burbank middle school gym demo’.

As Shawn was a Corporal while serving in the United States Marine Corps, he named his YouTube channel as Corporals Corner.

He earns from a variety of sources like advertisements on his YouTube videos, selling merchandise, affiliate marketing; he also accepts donations on PayPal.

As of November 2023, Shawn has 1.07M subscribers on his YouTube channel, 49.3K followers on Instagram and 40K followers on his Facebook page.

He has a website.

His gear & recommendations-

Shawn uses a Sony FDR-AX33 4K Camcorder and a GoPro HERO6 Black 4K Action Camera.

A few of his bushcrafting recommendations are Military Modular Sleep System, OneTigris Outback Retreat Camping Tent, OneTigris TEGIMEN Hammock Hot Tent, Victorinox RangerWood 55, Morakniv Garberg Knife, etc.

Some of Shawn’s book recommendations are Bushcraft 101, The Bushcraft Boxed Set, Once Upon Atari, etc.

His YouTube channel recommendations are David Canterbury, Survival Lilly, The Gray Bearded Green Beret and The Bearded Burton.

Personal life-

In a YouTube podcast, Shawn revealed that he has an ex-wife.

He has a son (born in 2006) and much like Shawn, he too is very interested in outdoors and survival and also appeared in a few of Shawn’s YouTube videos.

Shawn has been in a relationship with Sierra Adams.

He moved from California to Wellston in Jackson County, Ohio.

Shawn loves playing video games especially Red Dead Redemption 2 and Atari.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Shawn Kelly?

Share with me in the comment section below.