Two Lives to Live - Getting to Know UGA Student Veterans

by Annelise Goldman

Scott Virgil, Alex Medina and Charlton Scott all dress like typical University of Georgia students-khaki shorts, screen-printed tee-shirts, flip-flops. It's little things that mark them as different. They are all in their early thirties, although Medina and Scott are undergraduates. None are from Georgia originally, although Medina and Virgil have had jobs here. They are each distinctly barrel-chested, even in their casual clothes.

Virgil, Medina and Scott are three of the more than 1.6 million American veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Virgil, an Army major, is a master's candidate and will return to the Army after his December graduation. Scott, a former Navy sailor and fourth-year student from Tallahasse, Fla., and Medina, an Air Force veteran and fourth-year student from Warner Robins, Ga., have both left the service; they're undergraduates preparing for civilian jobs. All three are part of the growing population of veterans and service members attending civilian colleges.

In Uniform

After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1998, Virgil was stationed at bases in Georgia and Hawaii as an armor officer, working with tanks, among other equipment. He deployed to Kosovo in 2001. Then, in late 2004, he spent a year in Afghanistan.

Stationed in western Afghanistan, his unit helped to quell an eruption of tribal violence. "That's called green on green, when it's not necessarily bad guys," Virgil explains. "It's just the different factions were fighting." His unit performed joint patrols with the fledgling Afghan army, met with community leaders, and provided security for Afghanistan's first presidential election.

Scott enlisted in the Navy a few months after finishing high school. Initially, he served as an electronics technician on the USS Saipan. Two years into his tour, the Navy selected Scott for its grueling, months-long Basic Underwater Demolition Course, or BUDS- the training sailors undergo to become Navy SEALS. He can't reveal many details about the course, other than how demanding it is.

"BUDS is an entity unto itself," Scott says. "It's unlike any training you're ever going to do." He describes constant exercise, early morning ocean swims, little sleep and "drown-proofing," when sailors learn to keep calm while tied-up and thrown underwater. Only about 17 percent of the sailors who begin the course complete it.

In October of 2001, Scott was among the first US forces to deploy to Afghanistan, on the USS Kitty Hawk. Like his SEAL training, he can't reveal many details about his two tours there, or the two he later served in Iraq. "We were there to disrupt communications," Scott says of his time in Afghanistan, but he won't say much more.

Medina enlisted a few months after finishing high school as well. In the Air Force, he specialized in installing and maintaining communications equipment. He planned to serve for four years and then go to college. During his first contract, he married and started a family. At the end of his tour, a friend's wife was diagnosed with cancer. Deployed overseas, the friend could not come home without a replacement. "It was going to take at least a month finding someone," Medina says. "I thought to myself at the time, that's the one option I hadn't thought of." He served the rest of his friend's three-and a-half-month deployment to Saudi Arabia and reenlisted for six years.

In 2003, Medina deployed to the United Arab Emirates in support of the invasion of Iraq. "We were running communications," Medina says. "The base itself was there running supplies." Medina's unit installed and maintained the antennas the base used to communicate with convoys sending supplies to bases in Iraq.

The unit was all business when equipment broke down. "When it breaks, it's like your heart jumps up to about here and you're running about as fast as you can, fixing whatever it is, making sure the signal's still going," Medina says. "Every minute that you're out there [could be] a minute that an order comes through that says, 'Don't send that, it's under attack, it could cost some people lives,' or, 'Send that, these people are really out of ammo.' Every couple of minutes could very well be vital information."

Back to School

Virgil returned from Afghanistan in 2004 and decided, with the Army's blessing, that now would be a good time to earn a master's degree before his next assignment. UGA was close to his wife's family, and becoming a full-time student would give them more time together and with their young son Logan. "It's been the best decision I ever made," Virgil says. "I love it here. I love the faculty, the staff, the program I'm in."

The Army sees officers like Virgil as a strategic investment. The military pays for his education through an incentive program designed to improve personnel retention. "The Army pays for this, and then I stay in the Army for another four years," Virgil says. "I guess we both gained from it." He expects to serve in the Army for twenty years. "We compare it to 'The Shawshank Redemption," Virgil says. "The longer you stay in, the harder it is to get out."

By the end of 2004, Medina, by then a senior airman, also wanted to return to school and spend more time with his young sons. "It was like, 'I've been talking about going to school forever,'" Medina says. Medina earned his associate's degree through the Community College of the Air Force while still on active duty. "I essentially managed to [be a] full-time student and full-time [airman, working] twelve hour shift exercises," Medina says. He applies his military training to his new life as a student. "My time management is based completely out of the military time frame," Medina says. "You learn to do the impossible."

Finishing his degree while stationed in Warner Robins qualified Medina for the HOPE scholarship at UGA. Funds from the GI Bill and his job as a College of Agriculture computer technician cover his family's living expenses.

After 12 years in the Navy, Scott began to consider starting college as well. The Navy provides avenues for enlisted personnel to earn their degrees, but Scott's demanding schedule as a SEAL left little time for school. As a veteran, the GI Bill and a similar program, the Navy College Fund, could finance his education. He left the Navy and enrolled at Young Harris College before transferring to UGA.

Veteran Students

For the most part, Virgil is still learning, and he likes the diversity of ideas at UGA. He stopped by an anti-war protest once, just to listen. "I didn't go out there with a sign or anything," Virgil says. "I was hoping that they would talk more about it. All they said was, 'war is bad.' Well, no kidding, war is bad, I know that. I was hoping to hear more about their viewpoints."

For Scott, life as a student was a drastic change from the Navy. "I'm 30 years old and sitting in a classroom next to a guy who's 17 or 18, and we have nothing in common," Scott remembers of his first few semesters. His military training helped him weather the changes. "I'm used to making transitions," Scott explains.

If the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan come up on campus, Scott doesn't usually share his opinions. "That's how we are as operators, keep quiet," Scott says. He doesn't mind the debates, though. He sees protecting free speech as one of the duties of the military. "Shout out that the war is wrong, I'm here to defend you," Scott says.

Medina is adjusting to civilian life a bit at a time as well. "There's little aspects [of the military] that will always be with me," Medina says. "There's lingo, in the ways I talk, in the ways I discuss things that are often kind of regimented. And God forbid that I have to teach somebody something."

His social life at UGA is different as well. It was easier to make friends during his long assignment at Warner Robins. As a non-traditional UGA student, Medina lives with his family, not in a dorm or apartment with roommates. He's joined clubs to discuss comic books and anime and made friends through the Pagan Student Association. Now he's the president of a medieval renaissance society, but it can be hard to meet people. Sometimes, his military service serves as an entry point. "The military background tends to make people ask questions," Medina says. "If people are asking questions, they're sticking around. I tend to have really great stories."

Looking Ahead

Charlton Scott anticipates graduating in the spring. He doesn't want to return to the military; he wants to go on to graduate school and become a history professor. "I served my time," Scott says. "I served my country honorably."

Alex Medina wants a civilian career as well. He's studying industrial psychology, the science of how businesses work. Part of his job in the Air Force included finding the most efficient way to install equipment, similar to the way industrial psychologists analyze workplace inefficiencies. He'd like to go on to graduate school. "I may end up going into a government job at some point," Medina says, "but I will not be going back into the military."

Virgil is working on his thesis on American elections. He'll graduate in December and return to active duty in the Army. The unit to which he was assigned before coming to UGA is currently in Iraq; he anticipates that, depending on his assignment and the political climate, he'll be deployed soon after graduation as well. Right now, he spends as much time with his family as he can, going out to dinner with his wife and to the YMCA swimming pool or the library with his son. "I help out a good deal with my wife as far as taking care of our son," Virgil says. "I try to let her sleep in as much as possible. During the day I'm hanging with her, hanging with [Logan]. There's a chance at some point I'm getting deployed again, and at that point, there's never any sleeping in for her or anything like that."