Students enter ROTC amid wartime

On the six-year anniversary of the Iraq war last week, some held vigils to remember the… On the six-year anniversary of the Iraq war last week, some held vigils to remember the dead. Others attended protests against U.S. military presence abroad. For many, this has been a time to reflect.

Meanwhile the ROTC’s Three Rivers Battalion, formerly the Panther Battalion, was on the Carnegie Mellon track field at 6 a.m.

It was a foggy, windless, cold Friday morning, and the three cadets who arrived at 6:05 were too late to join a four-mile run through Schenley Park with the rest of the battalion for their Organizational Day.

The Navy ROTC stayed behind to belly-crawl across the wet artificial turf and fireman carry one another from the 50-yard line to the end zone and back.

The men and women walking around campus in Army, Navy and Air Force fatigues, they are fellow students. They operate within a different routine. They have a different set of concerns.

Rayshawn Pritchard is among them, a freshman at Robert Morris, who sweats and trains and does the hard work of a college student who might end up in the armed services after graduating.

‘The most challenging part overall would have to be waking up that early,’ he said. ‘I’m the first person up in my dorm. This morning you can barely see where you’re walking because of the fog.’

Pritchard is uncertain whether he’ll end up in the service. Many others, like Pitt freshman Stephanie Mehalic, are serving for certain. Mehalic accepted a scholarship during her senior year of high school and will serve five years in the Nursing Corps. after she graduates from Pitt.

She said the tough programs are worth the experience, though sometimes she feels differently. Like during the three rucksack runs through Panther Hollow, which she was unable to complete because her feet bled through her boots.

She is determined to serve, wherever it takes her, even if to Iraq or Afghanistan.

‘This is going to sound kind of morbid, but you do get a lot of experience that way in trauma and emergency medicine,’ she said. ‘It would be good experience.’

Cadet Lt. Colonel Paul Lewandowski said the change reflects the fact that not only Pitt but 18 other schools, including some in West Virginia and Ohio, are part of the battalion.

Lewandowski, a senior at Pitt, was in charge of the program, a day for the battalion to exercise and play sports in a non-work environment. It’s good for morale, to relieve stress, to get to know the people you’re with.

‘It’s incredible leadership. At 22 years old, we’ve got people in charge of 5,000 square miles, 200 cadets,’ he said. ‘There are training events every week. You can’t get this sort of experience anywhere else.’

While the cadets are excited to advance in the service, many veterans, like Christian Shields, a former petty Naval officer, engineman and Pitt student, adopt a new set of concerns if they return to school after serving.

Down in Pitt’s Veterans Services Office, an office tucked neatly in Thackeray Hall’s ground floor, veterans deal with a school bureaucracy familiar to most students, but made more complicated by their service.

Nick Bloom, a worker for the office and Navy veteran, having served nine years on the submarine U.S.S. Florida, said it’s like a dueling bureaucracy, coming from one into the other. It’s not easy to go right back into the school system. He said it would be nice for a refresher course in how things work.

‘You kind of get thrown in just like everyone else,’ he said. ‘The ROTC are more gung-ho. There’s a big difference between the ROTC and people who have served.’

Pitt veterans pursue degrees

Veterans come to the office constantly to get their tuition payments in order and to try to get credits earned in the service transferred.

Military Advanced Education, a journal for service members, runs a list of the top 30 military-friendly colleges in the United States. They are selected based on the number of military students, availability of financial aid, the number of military contracts and more.

Pitt did not make the list of schools that ‘bend over backward to offer additional support and consideration to members of the military and their families,’ though Duquense University’s School of Leadership did.

Bloom said Pitt’s Veterans Services Office is for tuition and credit considerations and little else. Some veterans tried to start a group a while back so veterans could meet socially on a regular basis, but it never came together.

‘Administrators come down all the time and ask us what could be done better,’ he said.

Pitt veterans receive benefits with the Veterans Hospital and the financial aid will be considerably better under the new G.I. Bill. Before, veterans received tuition money and had to pay their bills to the school they attend. The money goes directly to the school under the new bill.

Shields, Mehalic, Pritchard, Bloom and Nathan Mcneil expressed pride in serving our country.

Shields served in Japan and helped with the 2005 tsunami relief effort in Thailand. He said that the great humanitarian work the United States does helps provide safety and stability in the world.

Shields is working toward a degree in education. He would like one day to be an educator for children with special needs.

He is of a community of students involved with the Armed Forces, whether they are excited for the service or cutting through the red tape afterward. Theirs are stories of conflict, struggle and aid. Theirs are also stories of students.