After graduating from Native American Prep School in Santa Fe, N.M., Adam Kokesh '06 deferred his enrollment at CMC for one year to join the Marine Corps Reserves. He was assigned to the November Battery, Fifth Battalion, 14th Marines, an artillery battery of 155mm Howitzers. At a drill in Dec. 2003, between the first and second semesters of his junior year, his commanding officer made an important announcement: The Third Civil Affairs Group was looking for volunteers to go to Iraq. After a lengthy and difficult administrative process, Kokesh was on his way, ready to fulfill the purpose of his enlistment.
The following is his reflection on his time in Iraq and return to campus:
Not every CMC student takes advantage of the full range of study abroad opportunities sponsored by the U.S. government, some requiring rigorous physical fitness requirements, extensive background checks, and maybe even a suicidal streak. With a little extra effort, you can go from being a student in Claremont, studying and going to class one day, to being a U.S. Marine in Fallujah, getting shot at the next. There's even a foreign language offered, if you're willing to put in the extra time.
Assigned to Team 10, First Regiment Detachment, a roving tactical team responsible for a large area west of Baghdad, I got my first taste of combat driving in a Civil Affairs convoy to a joint city council meeting in downtown Fallujah, ambushed on the way in and attacked during the meeting. After that, attached to a company guarding an ammo supply point to the south of Fallujah, I distributed humanitarian rations, assessed structures, and helped with checkpoints and combat operations including patrolling, processing detainees, and evacuating casualties—all while getting shot at, mortared, and rocketed. I spent most of the rest of my tour establishing the Fallujah liaison team facility as a functioning civil military operations center.
In July they told us we would be back in early September. My immediate reaction was, "What's the end of the add-drop period again?" I got online at the base's Internet cafe, and e-mailed the registrar and residential life coordinator to make arrangements. When our arrival date was pushed back, I requested syllabi from two of my professors, ordered books from amazon.com to be delivered to Camp Fallujah, and even emailed an assignment.
I got back Sept. 14, missed my first class, and was ten minutes late for my second. Still in uniform, I used the old "I was in Iraq" excuse—works every time.
After class I walked around campus, a bit in a daze. I couldn't hold a normal conversation. I had a number of anxiety attacks. I often woke up thinking I had to be somewhere. Going out to the normal on-campus parties that weekend, seeing the people I was eager to see, I didn't feel comfortable getting drunk, and the crowds made me nervous. I was so used to being on guard when in public that it was hard to truly relax. A cardinal rule in Fallujah was to never let anyone get behind you—we had all heard the horror story of a Marine killed with his own pistol. Every time someone bumped into me from behind I instinctively reached down for my pistol and had a moment of awkward panic before realizing that I was being absurd.
I went back to Camp Pendleton for administrative demobilization including stress and readjustment classes that, for me, caused way more stress than they relieved. They may have helped other reservists making the slow transition back to civilian life, but I was missing class! At least I learned that normal combat stress symptoms take six to 12 weeks to go away, which was reassuring.
Now I'm back into my old routine, going to class, playing rugby, and throwing parties. It's been a strange transition, like waking up and realizing that your dream world is not the world you are in now, as you sit up in bed. You sit there for a while and ponder the significance of your dream, and wonder what it might have revealed about you. But then you shake it off, get out of bed, and go on with your day. That's what it's been like for me—waking up from a bad dream—almost as if it happened to someone else already.
But don't get me wrong—I had a great experience, and I'll never regret for a second that I volunteered.
http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/news/cmcmagazine/2005winter/endpaper/
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