 Jesus Campos ’03 (right) left campus this week to join his Marines reserve unit while John Ashton just returned from duty in Bosnia |
Last Saturday, the real world got to him first.
“As of 12:01 the unit has been activated.”
Everything happens quickly in the military. Eat quickly, think quickly and move quickly. Say goodbye quickly, too.
Campos had until Wednesday morning, about three days, to organize his world, a world he won’t see again for six to thirty months. A world that by the time he returns will have moved on. Campos, like a handful of fellow Wabash men, has an alter ego. They are military men, and while most college-aged Americans watch Bosnian peacekeeping and military build up in the Middle East via satellite, these men watch and wait, their futures uncertain.
Nikeland Cooper ’05, a Kappa Sigma fraternity brother of Campos, withdrew on Tuesday to join his National Guard troop.
For Matt Dudevoir ’04, the military has always been a part of life. He grew up in West Point, NY, where his father, an Army Colonel, teaches at the US Military Academy.
“‘Don’t sign up if you’re not ready to be sent somewhere.’ That’s what my dad always used to say,” Dudevoir said. Since high school, this self-described “Army brat” has heeded his father’s advice, but now he says he’s ready.
“September 11 was a wakeup call,” he said. “That’s when I realized it’s easy to forget about the rest of the world here.”
Dudevoir, a soldier in the Darlington National Guard, was told during his first day of training that his unit would be activated in the Fall 2003 and could be sent to Bosnia as soon as next December. Though that means putting graduation on hold for at least six months—a consequence that upsets his parents—Dudevoir is confident in his decision.
“I’m not really sure if you can prepare mentally,” he said. “At this moment, it’s what I want to do for my life.”
But that decision doesn’t come without regrets. He will have to leave his friends and family behind and graduating with his fellow Sigma Chi fraternity brothers in a year and a half won’t be possible.
John Ashton knows what it’s like to live with that kind of regret. Last May, Ashton not only missed his brothers’ graduation while serving in Bosnia as a combat medic, he missed his own. It was finals week during the Fall of 2001 when Ashton, then a senior, was told he would be activated the following Spring. As a member of the National Guard for six years, he understood and accepted his commitment, but that didn’t make the sacrifice any easier.
For six months and one day, Ashton was confined to a base no more than three football fields in size with 108 other soldiers. The cityscape was still riddled with rubble from years of fighting and destruction. Land mines lain along the side of the road by civilians who found them in fields and parks made transportation slow and dangerous.
Ashton can describe it all in one word: “goofy.”
“It was a goofy experience,” he said. Smiling children ran behind his jeep in the streets, playfully pointing at the American soldiers. During an arms recovery mission with Bosnian police officials, Ashton was handed a lump of gray clay one of the children had been playing with. “It took me a little while to realize what it was,” Ashton said holding out his hands. “It was a big block of C-4 plastic explosives.”
Now, back on campus and back in the classroom, Ashton is playing catch up. He has missed nearly two semesters of classes and will not be able to fulfill his credits within the allotted eight semesters to keep his financial aid. Though the National Guard would have paid for him to attend a state school, Ashton was set on coming home to Wabash.
“I’ve fulfilled my commitment and served in a combat zone, but it has set me back two years in school,” he said. Still, he remains positive about his military episode. “My experience there helped me understand what I learned here,” he said. “It’s been an important part of my life.” For Ashton’s Kappa Sigma fraternity brother, Campos, the military isn’t just a part of life. As of last Wednesday, there is room for little else inside.
“When I listen to John,” Campos said, “he did his job the best that he could and had a little fun. I’m looking forward to that.”
Campos, at five feet, seven inches and 125 pounds, is about half the size of his fraternity brother. But what he lacks in size, Campos makes up for in spirit.
Last Saturday, Campos reported for his second of three Anthrax immunization shots and quietly stood in formation among his more boisterous fellow Marines. Everyone was excited; they had heard the unit was about to be activated. But, when the commanding officer told the unit it would be shipping out in four days to an undisclosed location with an unknown timetable, the whole room changed.
“All these Marines—and these are Marines, OK?—some weren’t ready to be sent away then,” Campos said in his low Spanish accent. “You should have seen their eyes.”
While his commanding officer informed the men what equipment they would need and when they would be expected to report, Campos quietly remained in formation.
“I thought of it like, well, you know, shit happens,” he said. “I took it as positive as I could. It’s all I could do. I can’t change things. All I can do is be prepared.”
Since that moment, Campos has gone about his business in true military style, as quickly as possible. He contacted the College and got his senior oral exam rescheduled for the day before he left. He called his father about retrieving all of his belonging from the fraternity house. For Campos, this is his chance to show he is “what Wabash calls a responsible citizen.”
“Honor, courage and commitment,” Campos said confidently. “This means a lot to me. It’s our Marine Corps Gentleman’s Rule.”
On the night before his departure, Campos sat with his fraternity brother Ashton ruminating about his last three years.
“I’m so grateful to Wabash,” he said. “I can never finish offering my thanks.” Campos said there is no intention to come back to Wabash when he returns; there is a guarantee.
“If I don’t write, it’s not because I forgot,” he said. “I have a commitment, and I will be coming back.”
When he does, a new world will be waiting for him. Faces will have changed though his memory of them will have been frozen. For Ashton, coming home was a strange mix of confusion and happiness.
“The weirdest thing about coming home was it was like waking up from a surreal dream,” Ashton said. “You don’t think you’ve changed, but your world has changed drastically. I’m still noticing things.”