Students interrupt academic careers to serve in military.
AUBURN – Spc. Joey Wing got the call last month. He was being deployed.
Like all 500 members of the National Guard’s 133rd Engineering Combat Division, Wing suddenly found he had only weeks to say goodbye to friends and family and pack up his life. He would be gone for up to 18 months.
As if that wasn’t enough, the 20-year-old Lewiston native had something else to think about: school.
Just a month away from finals, Wing had to figure out how he was going to leave the University of Maine at Presque Isle without jeopardizing his tuition, his grades or the work he’d done in classes that semester.
As an increasing number of National Guard units are sent overseas to fight terrorists and the conflict in Iraq, more and more young reservists are finding themselves in a position they never considered before: how to put their lives on hold when they’re in the middle of college.
“When I joined, times were different,” said Wing, who signed up for the National Guard three years ago.
About 400 of Maine’s National Guard reservists are college students, said Master Sgt. Robert Haley, the guard’s education services manager. That’s 20 to 25 percent of all members in the state.
“Education benefits continue to be the No. 1 reason people join the Air or Army National Guard,” Haley said.
Reservists can get about $20,000 a year for college, including full tuition to public universities or partial tuition to private colleges. They also get a $282 stipend each month through the GI Bill and another $200 a month if they accept some hard-to-fill jobs or positions that require extensive training.
Members also get educational and career counseling.
“It’s a pretty comprehensive package,” Haley said.
Rob Adams, a 19-year-old freshman at Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor, joined the guard when he was a junior in high school. It was the only way he could afford college, he said.
“A friend just called me up and said, ‘Hey, you want to go to boot camp? They’ll pay for college,'” Adams recalled. “I said, ‘Sure.’ I didn’t have anything else.”
Adams got his call last month. The Hartford native had planned to get an associate’s degree in business management. Instead, he will spend the next year and a half in the military.
/////Choices
Like most other colleges and universities in Maine, Eastern Maine Community College gives National Guard members a choice based on their situations.
Students can withdraw and get no credit for coursework done that semester but get full refund on tuition and guaranteed re-enrollment when they return.
Student can accept an “incomplete” for some or all of their courses, effectively putting their classes on hold until they finish course requirements.
Or, if their instructors agree, they can finish their coursework early and accept a grade.
According to Haley, at least half of National Guard students are getting credit for some coursework. A few have decided to take their work with them overseas, sending in assignments via e-mail.
“My motto is: If you can get mail, you can take classes,” Haley said.
But many students found they didn’t have time to finish up coursework and didn’t want to – or couldn’t – bring their work overseas.
About a month away from the end of his first semester, Adams had weeks worth of classwork and tests yet to go. He decided to drop his five classes and withdraw from school.
It took a quick talk with a college dean and some paperwork for it to happen.
In Presque Isle, Wing decided to withdraw from two classes and write a report to replace a final exam in a third. He received a grade based on work completed in his fourth class.
He won’t be taking any classes where he’s going, he said. But he’s packing his textbooks to read while he’s away.
“Knowledge is something you can take with you,” he said.
////Saying goodbye
The University of Southern Maine lost more than a dozen students to National Guard duty last month. At Lewiston-Auburn College in Lewiston, three or four students were called up. Central Maine Community College in Auburn lost about six. The University of Maine at Farmington lost five.
Greg Swett, Eastern Maine Community College’s dean of students, said eight students had been called up by the National Guard since November. That’s the most he’s seen in his 24 years at the small school.
While students have been struggling with decisions about coursework, credits and tuition, college officials have been struggling to say good-bye.
Swett meets with every National Guard student called to duty. He gives them their coursework options. He tells them he’s proud of them. And he hands them a sheet with detailed information about returning to school.
He said the guard has given his students a great opportunity to go to college. And he appreciates that.
“But the reality is it’s hard to leave and come back,” he said. “We just hope that they do.”
ltice@sunjournal.com
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