SLUSSER ’19: “HE WANTS TO EARN IT”
I didn’t know it was going to be this big of a deal, Sheldon Slusser thought as he made his way up the aisle at this year’s Award Chapel.
But the standing ovation he was receiving said something different.
Professor of History Stephen Morillo had just announced Slusser as this year’s recipient of the Theodore G. Gronert Award for excellence in the study of history and government.
“He has not just studied history, he has participated in it,” Morillo told the audience, adding that he hoped to get through Slusser’s introduction without tears.
That didn’t happen.
Through the handshake, the award presentation, and the photos, the applause continued for the senior—for the Marine on campus.
“I don’t ask for recognition,” Slusser said. “But in that atmosphere, it was really cool.”
Slusser came to Wabash in the fall of 2013 from his family farm in Logansport, Indiana. Five years, a deployment to Afghanistan, and an award-winning thesis later, he finished his college career this summer in Paris.
The call from the United States Marine Corps Reserve came in January 2017—right in the middle of his junior year.
“It was actually really surprising,” Slusser says. “But I saw it as fortunate that I got to go. If I didn’t, I feel like I wouldn’t have been worthy of veteran status, and I think a lot of Marines would say that. It’s just a pride thing.”
“That’s Sheldon.” Morillo laughs. “He wants to earn it. There are no shortcuts for this guy.”
Before Slusser left for training, Morillo and his wife, former Wabash history Professor Lynne Miles, invited him to their home for dinner. They also sent care packages while he was away.
“We were worried about him,” says Morillo.
In Afghanistan, Slusser served as personal security detail for top military officials.
“We would get out of cars before they did and make sure everything was secure,” he says. “We would check under vehicles for IEDs. During meetings with the local Afghan officials, I would either hang outside the building or keep watch from inside the building.
“Especially when you first get there, you’re on edge about everything. But over time, you just get used to it. That’s why they limit you to only seven months—it becomes your everyday reality.”
After his tour, Slusser and his unit were sent to Kuwait for a two-week decompression period. From there, they went to Germany and then to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. His reintroduction into American society became the topic of the senior thesis paper for which he won the Theodore G. Gronert Award. In a 57-page paper (Morillo asked for only 40), Slusser detailed his own unit’s “coming home” experiences and compared them to the experiences of Vietnam veterans.
“I had an interview with Professor Tobey Herzog, and he said he was back on Purdue’s campus within 48 hours of leaving Vietnam,” Slusser says. “That’s crazy. The public had an inability to distinguish the politics of Vietnam versus the soldiers—that’s what gave them a bad image. Nowadays, even if people don’t support us being in the Middle East, they treat the troops as if it’s a just war.
“I thought my transition was easy. However, we have had two or three suicides just from our unit—one was just a couple of weeks ago. It’s different for everyone.”
Morillo hopes part of what helped Slusser readjust was coming back to Wabash.
“At Wabash, I know they care. It feels like a family.”
“Coming home from war is tough enough,” says Morillo. “It can be such an intense experience that anything else seems a little meaningless, and he needed that home base to operate from. And I’m glad he did. His story kind of felt unfinished to me until he came back.”
Slusser shared that story with one of Assistant Professor Sabrina Thomas’s history classes. He even took the time to read a book her students had read to prepare for a class discussion.
“The Yellow Birds is a fictional depiction of a U.S. soldier’s experience in Afghanistan and the PTSD he suffered upon return,” Thomas says, “and Sheldon was able to engage the class in a discussion of some of the main themes of the book.”
During the class discussion, one of the students asked, “Do you think we’re winning?”
“That was a really hard question to answer,” Slusser said. “I had such a small role, and I definitely don’t have enough rank to worry about the overall picture. But there are a lot of small victories inside of the big picture. It was a win to me, when I was on personal security detail with the colonel, if I came back to base and he was alive.”
“He was very open and honest, and the students really enjoyed hearing his insights,” Thomas says. “His visit was one of the highlights of the course.”
Slusser laughs when hearing he may be a primary source for history classes and projects, but Morillo says that’s what made his senior thesis “superb.”
“It was a really satisfying combination of objective analysis but with his own voice and his own experience built in there. It was like a scholar with an informed perspective.”
slusser’s last day in the Marine Corps came the week after his graduation from Wabash. He used his GI Bill to finish his final Wabash credit at an American-funded school in Paris while waiting to hear back regarding his applications to the United States Border Patrol and the United States Secret Service.
“I can imagine him coming up with policy papers on how to improve whatever position he ends up with,” Morillo says. “Maybe it will be something about fitting security into cultural settings—that’s something he would be good at. Coming from a freshman who wasn’t sure what he wanted to major in to being an award-winning history student is quite a trip. I’m really proud of him.”
“Now that I’m getting my degree, I’m hungry for more,” Slusser says. “This is just the start of a brand-new chapter in my life.”