 "Photo: Erik Aguilar")
For Jordan Gildersleeve, trading a rucksack for a backpack was a surprisingly easy decision.
After two tours in Iraq and four years in the Army, Gildersleeve decided school was where he would rather be, he said.
“I was tired of it, I didn’t want to do it anymore,” Gildersleeve said. “I don’t want to spend my entire life just going there and back, and taking the chance of dying.”
Gildersleeve entered the Army when he was 19 years old, fresh out of high school, with little knowledge of what he wanted to do with his life, he said. The Army presented the chance for an adventure and a good way to make money.
After returning from the war, however, this perspective has changed drastically, he said. The Army gave Gildersleeve a sense of direction — he knew he wanted to do more than carry a gun and fight a war he no longer believed in, he said.
“It was a great thing we did taking Saddam out of that regime,” Gildersleeve said. “But we had to scramble to find a way to put Iraq back together and I think the way that we did it was awful. It didn’t really help at all.”
Another issue, shared by Gildersleeve and student veteran, John Hart, is the culture shock. It can be difficult when the average veteran is five to six years older than the average freshman, and they have experienced much more responsibility, Hart said.
“I hear students talking about how it’s the end of the world when their parents make them get their own phone bill,” he said. “I just think really, there are much bigger things in the world. I’ve seen them.”
Hart came to Chico State in 2006 after spending six years in the Army National Guard. He was deployed in 2004 to help in the situation in Kosovo.
There is a long history of tension between neighbors Serbia and Albania, he said. When a large group of Albanians formed a community in Serbia, known as Kosovo, and wanted independence from Serbia, violence broke out. His was a peacekeeping mission.
“My job was to make friends with everyone,” Hart said. “The idea was that if they felt comfortable with us, they would warn against future attacks that would threaten peace for civilians in the area.”
Although Hart was trained in combat and carried a gun, his mission did not incur violence, but he still feels stereotyped by people in America because he is a soldier.
Once people find out about his past the first question they ask is, “How many people have you killed?” Hart said.
This is unsettling to Hart and many other veterans because it shows them a lack of concern, he said.
“When people find out you are in the Army, they automatically think you’re a killer, which is ignorant and just not true,” Hart said.
Most people in the Army don’t even go to combat and are “paper pushers” who often never leave the base, Hart said. Even if they are in combat many, like Hart, may never see action.
“Veterans should never be stereotyped, because they are so diverse,” Hart said. “Everyone comes out with a different experience, good or bad.”
Hart considered his experience in the National Guard to be positive and one that helped him find direction in his life, he said. He is currently pursuing a degree in business administration with an option in human resources because he wants to take the structure he learned in the military and apply it to businesses.
Gildersleeve also thinks the Army changed him for the better because he is more focused and doesn’t take any part of life for granted, he said.
Terry Gildersleeve-Haag, Gildersleeve’s mother, also thinks the Army changed her son’s personality for the better — though she wishes it didn’t have to take a war to do so, she said.
“He really was just a child when he went in,” she said. “He was a jokester and took many things in life for granted. But now he has become a man. He says ‘I love you’ every time I see him and even thanks me for making a grilled cheese sandwich.”
Gildersleeve-Haag supported her only son’s decision to go into the Army, even when she was told he would definitely be going to war, she said. And, since the time he came home, certain things will always look different to her.
“Now when I see an American flag, I know it’s still flying because of soldiers like my son,” Gildersleeve-Haag said. “He truly is my hero. I know he has seen things that he will never tell me, but it has made him a brave person.”
Delaine Moore can be reached at
dmoore@theorion.com
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