The Collegian

Issue date: 2/26/09 Section: News

Pop… pop pop. The sound of a distant AK-47 resonates as junior Katie Anderson pushes the gas pedal down on her Humvee. The red flash of tracer fire doesn't distract her as the convoy speeds through the would-be ambush towards Butka, Iraq delivering mail.
Fast-forward two years and Anderson is in college, unconsciously taking different paths to class each day to confuse would-be assailants.
Anderson, called Andy by her battle buddies and almost everyone else who knows her, spent 12 months in Iraq, working as a communications specialist for the Army National Guard.
Like many students who go to war immediately after high school, she had trouble adjusting to the life of a college student.
"When I first came home that time of paranoia didn't stop," Anderson said. "I couldn't drive for a while."
In Iraq, mortar attacks became more an annoyance than a threat, causing her to drop what she was doing and put on heavy armor filled with sand mites in 150 degree heat.
Back home, ordinary experiences had the opposite effect on her. Pepsi cans on the side of the road would catch her eye. If someone pulled up too close to her car, she would begin to run through possible defensive maneuvers. Unexpected fireworks startled her.
"My dad was like 'You know you should really take some time, take the summer off, don't work, don't worry about school, just take sometime to live a little bit this summer because you've been shot at for the past year,'" Anderson said.
So, she took the summer easy and volunteered at a 4-H camp where she met her now best friend Katherine Torvinen, who introduced Anderson to Hillsdale College.
Junior Toby Williamson, who served in the Marines, had a completely different experience. During the first of his two tours, he worked in mortuary affairs, recovering fallen soldiers' bodies to identify them, catalog personal affects, record wounds and prepare them for shipment.
His time abroad changed his perspective on death.
"Until you accept the fact that you are going to die, then you function at a higher level because you're not operating out of fear," he said. "I know I'm going to die, I don't know when, none of us can change that. But, if you're living out of fear of death, then you're worthless, especially at war."
Williamson said he found satisfaction in giving each soldier the treatment he or she deserved. He thrived on the intensity of his job, and on knowing he was doing something meaningful everyday.
When he returned home, civilian life became a daily grind.
"The most difficult thing for me was not having that sense of accomplishment on the things that I would do," Williamson said. "When I first got back there was nothing that I could do that would fill that void that had been left there from what I had done in Iraq."
He decided to transfer from Liberty University, which he attended in 2001, to Hillsdale College, which he learned about from an e-mail passed throughout his unit. The e-mail described a scholarship Hillsdale offers to Marines, funded by Marines.
It was Hillsdale's attitude toward the military that brought sophomore James Markman to Hillsdale College.
Markman joined the Army shortly after former National Football League player Patrick Tillman was killed in Afghanistan.
During his 13 months on tour, Markman spent his time traveling across Iraq and picking up prisoners in a convoy.
As a medic, Markman monitored the health of 140 prisoners and 12 guards. He had the most difficulty taking care of the prisoners, who tried to commit suicide by hanging or cutting themselves, stabbing each other and even eating their own feces.
On his way to Rustimiyah, Iraq, a truck loaded with explosives rammed into the first convoy vehicle, a Light Medium Tactical Vehicle, bringing his convoy a halt, then a second explosive detonated by the roadside, firing ball bearings, nails, screws and scrap metal toward Markman at more than 300 mph.
The explosion left 14 pieces of shrapnel in Markman, who had to be medevaced to Rustimiyah. However, before Markman was evacuated he buckled his flak vest on and began medical procedures on two other soldiers who were worse off.
"They even found a small metal matchbox car out of all of it," Markman said. "They just found every piece of metal they could use to put in there. They just wanted to do as much damage they could, and that included a matchbox car."
For his injuries and efforts under fire, Markman would receive the Purple Heart and an Army Commendation Medal for valor.
College life is a breeze by comparison, he said.
"Kids that are able to go to college are so damn lucky they don't have other things to do, like greater commitments in life, or greater obligations, they don't appreciate it, and that bugs the heck out of me," he said. "I've seen what happens to a lot of these guys who aren't given these lucky stops, and that's in the army and then there're the Iraqis who just have no chance."
For Williamson, returning to civilian life seemed to carry with it a silent death. The stresses of home seemed stifling, but the stresses of Iraq, though carrying more severity, seems freeing by comparison
"At the end of the day, you're alive, and that's really what matters." Williamson said. "You just don't get that here at home. I don't want to romance it up too much by saying the excitement, but essentially that a big part of it. What's the excitement here? Not a whole lot."

Rev. Dr. John Reist
Professor of Religion and Literature John Reist was drafted out of seminary and into the Armed Forces in the 1950s.
He was station in France from 1959 to 1960. It was in Paris where he met a street artist who created the portrait of Dr. Reist pictured on the front page.
In France, Dr. Reist met his company's Chaplain who convinced Reist to become ordained.
Reist recalled the Chaplain saying that Reist was an "edgy little bastard, but that's who God is calling. Not the religious or pious. The religious and pious are dull and boring."

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