The other day, I shared with some of my sorority sisters (Epsilon Sigma Alpha International) the fact that I never got the chance to finish college. I attended Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, AL for 3 years as a ROTC cadet before I enlisted and went off to basic training.

When I graduated basic and arrived at AIT at Ft. Gordon, Augusta, GA, I was able to travel back to Stillman to see my best friend Lionel graduate with honors after only 3 years as a student. It of course was a bittersweet moment. Of course I was proud, but I was losing my best friend to his new-found adulthood, whereas I had become a soldier and adult of a different breed;  he had accomplished the task we had both sought after while my dream lies deferred.

I never thought I’d know how it feels to not complete a task, especially as great as earning a college degree but, I do. In short, you feel failure.

There are many soldiers that share my defeat.

Jen, my ESA sorority sister from California, and an active participant in our “Hope for Heroes” program for our troops, wrote words of encouragement that made all the sense in the world. The only way I can describe it is, “Yes I Can!”

Here’s what she said:

“Good news is that college is always waiting for us to finish no matter what
our age is when we do.

What college teaches us is to enhance the knowledge we already know, tweak it into a field of interest so that we may better the lives of others in
those fields that may otherwise never have known the information existed in the first place. And after you have put in hundreds if not thousands of
hours of hard reading, writing,sitting, standing, and paying - they invite
you to attend your graduation to receive a piece of paper to tell you that
you have the right to earn a few hundred dollars more then if you had not
received further education… and then you are not even really guaranteed a
job in that field because either the information you have been studying so
hard and for so long is now obsolete, or the field is.  In this economy it
could be both.

What you are doing right now is just as, if not more, important than what
college can teach you, and I am a big fan of college (graduated in Irvine,
CA, May 2007 - major: ECE, minor: math). You are learning a different sort of life experiences, team support, and security for all mankind regardless of
their reasonings.  You are assisting in  changing the views of others about
themselves and about the people around them, erasing the negative banter
that they were taught for years of who others are and that everyone who does not believe and/or think in the same manner that they do is wrong or evil. You are helping to teach compassion and understanding, to believe in oneself and know that it is not a weakness to need the support of others… That sometimes it does take a village to raise a child, but not always, sometimes it just takes a kind heart and a deep love for human kindness to raise a child up. And since we are all children of one God or another, it is only fitting that we should all want to play together and get along regardless of the language barriers we have all grown up with for centuries. Especially
when our families from all over the world came to the America’s seeking a
different lifestyle then the one they had in the other countries from which
they came, and for one reason or another were closed off from these family
roots, and thus forth came the myth or belief that all Americans are evil
people.  Yet, by having men and women like yourself in these countries
helping to secure their children’s lively-hoods to form a more unified
government where “everyone” is considered important and needed, you are in fact helping every families history to be healed, and mankind to be united
in a form of freedoms that they would otherwise never have, and that is
“peace.”

In away you are replaying out a part of American history in other countries.
You are fulfilling a position that many great men and women from our past
had set forth to change during the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s - that being
equality of all mankind regardless of age and gender, to pursue what ever
makes them happy without causing prejudice against his/her fellow mankind.

People hate Americans because of their blindness to the truth, and their
fear of change. Americans give everything they have, right or wrong, they confront and challenge change, and they protect everything change stands for - FREEDOM. Other countries do not think/feel that freedom is worth the death of our loved ones, yet it is you men and women (centuries before / after) that prove the others wrong time and time again. Because you go in, you see, you educate the present peoples, you assist with their needs, and sometimes you die for their changes too. They ask us why we call this freedom, and we explain because you choose this way of life, you are not forced into signing up and training for this line of work, you chose to face these challenges and give back to so many and receive so little from the few who know, understand, and support you in your calling, because you are not forced into signing up for the people you share land with.”

See you soon college degree!!!

Thanks Jen… Jonquil Love