Charlie's Articles

As a young child I learned the importance of a college education at an early age by watching my mother work her way through college from the bachelor’s level all the way through a master’s and into a Ph.D. program. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework as my mother was doing hers. As a high school senior, I knew that I wanted to attend college and continue on to graduate school. My family had no money to help pay my college tuition and I did not want the student loan debt my mother had accrued. I also knew that high school had only prepared me to go to college and provided no job skills that would provide me with an income while I worked through college. In October, I began talking to a navy recruiter who convinced me that the navy was the answer to all of my problems. I was told that I could get $30,000 for college, job training and life experience that would make me competitive in the job market when I got out. I had grown up in a culture that is fascinated with militarism. I watched war movies, played war in the woods and read memoirs of Vietnam and World War II. In short, I believed that not only could the navy provide for my needs, but I would provide my country with a valuable service. I did not realize that wartime service would involve sacrificing all of the values I held dear.

I arrived at my first command in the spring of 1997 and began taking classes as quickly as I could. Three years later when I transferred to the second marine division in Camp Lejeune NC, I had completed less than a full year of college. I was able to attend even less college with the Marines because I was always in the field or deployed. Up to this point, I had thought little of the moral implications of a military. This changed during a deployment to the Mediterranean Sea in the spring of 2001. During a field operation, I had the opportunity to see the after effects of the Balkan Wars on a small village. Shortly after returning home, I decided that I should leave the military. However, by this time, my wife was pregnant and I realized I could not afford $5,000 for an uncomplicated birth. I also found that my military training did little to help me find employment. I felt I had no choice but to re-enlist. The following year, my unit was shipped to Iraq.

I am one of the thirty percent of Iraq war veterans that suffers from psychological effects of the war. I have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a condition that may be permanent. I was found unfit for duty and discharged from Naval Service in March of 2005.

Since my discharge, I have been using my GI Bill and attending community college. Nearly nine years after I began my pursuing my college education, I have still only amassed half the credits needed to complete my degree. Moreover, my GI Bill allows me to receive less financial aid than other students. I have had to take out student loans and I can be considered lucky because I receive a pension from the government. Most people separating from the military do not have this luxury.

It is true that the men and women who join our military do so voluntarily, but this statement only goes so far. When the youth of our nation must choose between the battlefields of Iraq and not being able to care for their families, there is an economic draft. When the young people of my country have to choose between the battlefields of Iraq or not having health insurance, there is an economic draft and when the youth of my nation cannot find anyway into the college classroom except through the battlefields of Iraq, there is indeed an economic draft. Education, healthcare, and employment are not luxuries to be given to a select few and sought after by the masses. Education, healthcare and employment are human rights. I thank you for the opportunity to be here today and share my story. I hope that future generations will not have to sacrifice their humanity, like I did, for a job and a college education.