The Norwich Guidon

The Norwich Guidon, student newspaper of Norwich University, is published twice monthly and has won numerous awards for excellence in its class.

Reporters, editors, and managers for The Norwich Guidon are students at the university who work under the guidance of a Communications faculty advisor. Student editors learn electronic pagination using state of the art computer equipment.

If you have any questions or comments about the paper, please contact Professor Ken Bush at kbush@norwich.edu.

Student marine reservists called back to active duty

By Mike Legere
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

The reserve members of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines, were activated again last week, less than three months after completing their last tour of duty on Dec. 8. Four members of the company are Norwich students who will once again have to put their college careers on hold to serve their country.

The unit was activated in Jan. 2001, and spent 44 days in Kosovo and 321 days at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The four Marines who recently left from Norwich are Steve Kulawiak, Francis Collyer, Cody Bilodeau, and Daniel Daugherty. They had missed two semesters of school during their active time, and are now forced to leave once again mid-semester.

Steve Kulawiak, a 22-year-old junior criminal justice major from Stanhope, NJ, said he believes the unit's activation indicates that the threat of war is immanent, and the Marines from Norwich will be deployed elsewhere.

"If they are calling us up again, I don't think it would be to sit for a year at Camp Lejeune," Kulawiak said. "I would imagine we would probably get deployed somewhere overseas."

Since these reservists were only deactivated a few months ago, all of their training and experience from Kosovo is still fresh, Kulawiak said.

"It was a good experience for all of us," said Kulawiak. "We carried live ammunition on security patrols. It gave us the basics for what we may see this time."

Kulawiak said that he believes the company will have brief training at Camp Lejeune before being shipped overseas ahead of other newly activated units.

Where some units are just beginning their training cycle, Golf Company has completed all their training within the last year. According to Kulawiak, no one knows for sure how long the unit will be activated, but they are assuming six months to a year.

Some Norwich professors are allowing the activated Marines to receive grades of incomplete on their classes so the work they have done so far this semester won't go to waste. Kulawiak hopes to take advantage of this opportunity.

"There's always going to be down time," Kulawiak said. "So if I just stick to my books in the bottom of my sea bag, I should be able to get some work done."

Kulawiak said he is determined to graduate from Norwich.

"I'm going to come back no matter what, even if no one I know is left when I come back," Kulawiak said. "I set a goal to graduate from here and then get a commission and that's what I'm going to do."

Although some students are sad to see their friends go, most are supportive of the Marines called to duty because they know the importance of their mission.

With the Marines gone, several important positions in the corps of cadets will need to be filled.

Some other big changes will take place with Norwich housing. There will be several beds opening for students whose academic needs qualify them for a single room as well as those who simply don't get along with their roommates.

"We have been so full that we have had students who have had roommate issues and we haven't been able to accommodate them," said Maj. Helen Bryan, Norwich administrative officer. "So it gives a little flexibility. Not a lot, but it gives us a little flexibility to solve some of the problems that have come up over the last semester."

Norwich has now lost about 20 students as a result of reservists being activated.

"It is not going to slow down the cadets and put an end to what we do here," according to Michael Phelan, a 21-year-old senior cadet business management major from Beverly, Mass. "Some of these people are going to be missed, they provide a valuable function to the corps of the cadets but basically, we will do what we have always done. We will drive on from here and not much will change."