Dartmouth Men in the Trenches

By Tyler R. Brace | Friday, October 31, 2008

As hundreds of Dartmouth students rush to meet corporate recruiting deadlines, a much smaller group of students is taking a different path, one that leads not to boardrooms and six-figure salaries but to harsh conditions and dangerous assignments. These men bring their talents to an organization that desperately needs it: the United States military. The Dartmouth Review interviewed three current seniors who plan to join the Armed Forces after college and one recent graduate who has already spent several years in the U.S. Army.

Christopher Koppel ‘09

Chris Koppel is a senior at Dartmouth and the senior cadet in Dartmouth’s Army ROTC detachment. Dartmouth ROTC is a four year scholarship program that commissions Dartmouth students as Army second lieutenants after graduation. There are currently six cadets, which allows for personal attention from the staff. The group meets weekly for two hours of class and three hours of field training in topics ranging from rifle marksmanship to land navigation.

Koppel comes from a family that values military service; his father and both of his grandfathers served in the Navy. His decision to join ROTC his freshman fall reflects his view that “As an intelligent, educated, and physically capable young man, I am needed by our country to serve and protect our way of life.” By accepting an ROTC scholarship, Koppel is obligated to serve eight years on active and reserve duty. This is a decision he has never regretted despite the stories he hears of high pay and glamour in the corporate world.

“While it is a little demoralizing to see my friends take lucrative jobs or internships (this summer I was getting paid $28 a day while some of my friends approached the same wage per hour), I feel that my time in the military will only open more doors for me in the long run. The valuable experience I’ll take from the army will help me enter management (hopefully in an upstart renewable energy firm), continue government service (possibly the CIA) or allow me to pursue a political career down the road,” he said.

This past summer Koppel participated in Leadership Development and Assessment Camp (LDAC) at Fort Lewis, Washington for a month. The camp is mandatory for all juniors enrolled in ROTC and is designed to ensure that all cadets meet standards for officers. Koppel described LDAC as fun but not particularly challenging. The most rewarding part of his summer came during the second half, when he attended Cadet Troop Leading Training (CTLT), a program that pairs an ROTC cadet with a second lieutenant so the cadet can learn how troops are led. Koppel was assigned to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, CA, the last stop for units preparing to deploy to Iraq. Here they received the most realistic combat training the Army has to offer. For instance, Koppel’s lieutenant played the role of an al-Qaeda cell leader, so Koppel experienced the most current insurgent tactics used in Iraq and Afghanistan today. In addition, Koppel took courses in mixed martial arts and Jiu Jitsu.

Upon graduation, Chris Koppel will be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. While he finishes his Master’s of Engineering Management at Thayer, he will be on staff at nearby Norwich University’s Army Department. Once he obtains his degree, he hopes to join the Army Corps of Engineers. Koppel is enthusiastic about his choices and urges other Dartmouth students to consider serving. “At Dartmouth there are very talented individuals, and the armed services could use them to help question how things are currently done and make positive changes. If you do your research, there are many ways to serve your country and many opportunities for the government to pay for your schooling and other training. If you’ve had an interest in the military for a while, it would be a shame if you never gave it a shot. The commitment isn’t for the rest of your life and it will, at the very least, be an experience that develops your character.” Koppel is happy to answer any questions and is available via e-mail or in person.

Alexander Abate ‘09

Alex Abate is taking a different route to military service. His sophomore summer, he contacted the Marine Corps’ New Hampshire Officer Selection Office. After a few meetings, he decided to apply to Officer Candidate School, a two-month selection camp for potential Marine officers. Upon completing the program, a candidate is offered a commission as a second lieutenant and, if he accepts, signs a three and a half year commitment to serve. After applying to OCS, Abate began preparing for the course and even took the Department of Defense’s fitness test. However, his plans were put on hold when he broke his leg. He decided to reapply this year and will hopefully commence training in late summer or early fall 2009.

When asked why he plans on joining the Marines, Abate said, “The easiest explanation I can offer is that I owe a debt of service to my country. I am infinitely fortunate to be an American: simply due to the location of my birth, I have been afforded opportunities found nowhere else in the world. By serving my county, I would be able to give back to my country and ensure that future generations have the same opportunities I have been so lucky to have.” He is undecided about what specific branch of the military he hopes to join but he “envisions doing something on the ground. If I wanted to work in an office, I could do that in the private sector.”

Andrew Son ‘09

Like Abate, Andrew Son decided to enter the military during his college career. He had contemplated applying to West Point during high school but was not prepared to make such a firm commitment at that time. It was during his off-term internship at the Washington State House of Representatives during winter of 2008 that he decided to become an Army officer.

Son feels it is his duty to give back to his country. He also feels that as a Dartmouth student, he is ideally positioned to make a difference. “The United States military needs highly motivated and educated individuals to serve: people like Dartmouth students. I’m confident that I’ll make a difference somewhere…I hope to motivate other people to serve in the armed forces. I want to show people that you can be successful even if you donate a few years of your life to the military,” he said.

Upon graduation, Son will take a few months off before heading to Basic Training for nine weeks and then to the Army’s Officer Candidate School.

Rollo Begley ‘04

Unlike the other students profiled in this article, Begley is a few years into his military service. During his senior year at Dartmouth, he was uninterested in the types of jobs his friends were seeking. “I mean, come on, do you really want to be a mortgage-derivatives analyst at age 22?” he asked rhetorically. He started talking to Army recruiters, first from the Marines and then from the Army. Begley was impressed by the responsibility he would have at age 22, and the type of work the Army does seemed much more exciting to him than a desk job.

Begley joined the Army under the OCS plan, the same route Andrew Son plans to take. This option is open to any college graduate who meets Army entrance standards. The first step along this path is Basic Training, which Begley describes as, “nine weeks of your life that just suck, and that’s all there is to it.” After Basic came OCS, which was “boring but not difficult,” according to Begley. Then there is artillery school. In Begley’s words, “Artillery school is awesome. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it. You have to move to Lawton, Oklahoma for six months, which is a significant drawback, but you get to call in dangerously close artillery rounds, and I got to call in an airstrike, both of which are spectacular experiences.” After artillery school, he joined the 10th Mountain Division, where he was given an infantry platoon, despite his training as an artillery officer.

He deployed to Iraq soon after as leader of a heavy weapons platoon. Begley describes war as “the most mind-imploding, suicidal-thought-enhancing, incomprehensibly boring and frustrating process in the history of man’s retardation. But in return for all of that, you do get a couple of moments when your adrenal glands snort speed. It’s worth experiencing.” While in Iraq, Begley sought to understand why soldiers perform life-threatening tasks on a daily basis. In his opinion, it is because “Nobody wants to be a pussy. Bottom line. Guys will do all kinds of things because somebody tells them to and they’re too proud to say no.”

Begley has enjoyed his time in the Army:

The greatest thing about the job is just unparalleled in the civilian world, and that’s the breadth of knowledge that’s expected and offered. Today, I had to figure out how to ship radioactive materials by rail halfway across the country. In the past month, I’ve repaired a diesel engine, made a thirty-minute speech, and helped secure a loan for a 19-year-old colleague with significant and unforeseeable family problems…In twenty years in the Army, a non-spectacular career path could easily include: running a 35-man organization, being number two in a 120-man organization, six months of training, running a 120-man organization, going to grad school for two years (tuition and salary paid), teaching at West Point, twelve months of training, being number two in a 700-man organization, running a department of a 10,000-man organization, running a 700-man organization, and the list goes on. That’s a ton of responsibility, and you end it all at forty-something years old with a retirement check for the rest of your life. Nothing wrong with that.

These four men add to a rich tradition of military service at Dartmouth that stretches back to the earliest days of the College, as described on page 8.

Dartmouth Men in the Trenches

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