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Military students face education delays |
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Thursday, 31 August 2006 |
This article is the second of a two-part series on the effects of war on Appalachian students.
by ALLISON CASEY
Lifestyles Reporter
Appalachian State University students are fortunate to live in the peaceful surroundings of Boone. For most students, reports of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East have been isolated to a television screen.
However, for some students, the bombs and bullets are real.
“Everyone knows someone who is deployed or is going to be,” senior
middle grades education major Mitchell S. Rick said. “It’s less of a
novelty.”
Rick returned from deployment in Iraq April 2005 and has been attempting a degree for ten years.
“I don’t want to go back (to Iraq) but if I get called I’m going. It’s that easy,” he said.
Appalachian senior art management major Erica L. Douglas said she might
be forced to leave school during her last semester to travel overseas.
Her boyfriend of nearly six years, Caldwell Community College student
Martin R. Smith, is a Marine who may be recalled to return to combat
after already serving in Iraq.
Douglas said the threat of being shipped to Iraq has been a source of the couples depression.
“[Smith] doesn’t agree with the war, he didn’t vote for Bush and he
went only to serve his country and get some money for college,” Douglas
said.
Douglas reported not attending class because of the depressing subject matter they were discussing that day.
“I cannot focus in my classes,” she said. “When the man I’ve loved for
five and a half years may be in Iraq in a month, art history doesn’t
really matter.”
Rick also said the war has affected him at Appalachian.
He said since returning, he applies what he learned in the military to
his every day life. “I’m more prone to fight for what I believe in,” he
said. “Even if it’s in class and I have to be the one person with a
point of view.”
He said adjusting to civilian life ha been difficult.
“At first you’re really on edge,” he said. “I was driving home on the
Forth of July and heard fireworks. I had to stop the car and think
about where I was.”
One of the most difficult parts about returning was feeling so “out of
the loop,” Rick said. “It’s like you’re in jail for a crime you didn’t
commit, and you’re released and have to come home to find that
everyone’s moved on.”
“The school has been amazing,” Rick said. “They’ve been so willing to work with me.”
Various administration, including Chancellor Kenneth E. Peacock, sent him letters while he was deployed and upon returning.
“Everybody calls us soldiers heroes,” he said. “But everyone who
supports us and takes the time to send us care packages, those are the
heroes. You have to pay your taxes, but no one makes you send a care
package to a stranger.”
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