Gorbea '98 called from reserves for duty in Iraq

When Carlos Gorbea '98 reads about a soldier dying in Iraq, he searches for the details that might save his life.

News of a fallen soldier has always affected Gorbea, who grew up in a military family. But these days, he does more than mourn — he looks for any clue to avoid the same fate.

"It really hits me, especially now that I'm headed over there," said Gorbea, a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve who has been called up for duty. "I'm now reading into it and trying to be aware of what to look out for."

On Sunday, he will set aside a half-completed MBA, kiss his wife of three months goodbye and join nearly 140,000 reservists currently on active duty. His deployment papers say he'll be gone 18 months, including a year of "boots-on-the-ground" time in Iraq, but that might change depending on the situation in 2006.

The beginnings of a new life await his return. He'll be away as his wife, a German native who moved to Boston in August, adjusts to life in the United States. He won't see his classmates graduate in June, and he'll have to postpone the start of his business career.

As Gorbea's departure draws closer, those close to him cope in the ways they know best. His father, a retired colonel, gives him military advice. His mother reminds him to pray every night and put his faith in God. His wife keeps busy with her new job, refusing to dwell on the inevitable.

"I realize I have to accept it," said Andrea Hermann, who met Carlos in 1999 while he was serving in Germany. "I'm used to being separated from him, so the first couple of months won't be that hard. But after a certain time I will be thinking about it, especially after he has to go to Iraq."

A decade of service

Gorbea still remembers that day, during senior year of high school, when he came home to find an application for an Army ROTC scholarship on his desk. His father had left it there.

"I took the hint and applied," Gorbea said, laughing. "I wasn't committed or thinking about joining the Army, but once I tried the program out, I really got into it."

The scholarship granted Gorbea full tuition and a living stipend. In exchange, he would go through officer training during college and then serve four years of active duty and four years on reserve.

At Princeton, he started as a civil engineer but switched to mechanical engineering after realizing "their toys were better than all the other engineering departments."

He played JV baseball, organized salsa parties through Acción Puertoriqueña and joined Colonial Club.

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But Gorbea was also serious about his studies. With the help of professor Naomi Leonard '85 — winner of the 2004 MacArthur "genius grant" — he designed and built an underwater remotely-operated vehicle. He studied how the vehicle's center of gravity affects its path.

The day Gorbea graduated was also his commissioning day, and he served four years in an engineer unit at an Army base in Bamberg, Germany.

There he excelled at his job, according to Ltc. Timothy Brown, who supervised Gorbea for two years and is now director of Army officer education at Princeton. "I thought very highly of him — he was one of those guys I'd take back in a heartbeat."

Gorbea loved military life but saw it more as a chance to learn about leadership than as a permanent career. Even while in Germany, he was an active day-trader, checking his stock portfolio between building roads and repairing bridges.

When his four years in the Army were up, Gorbea applied to business schools, and was accepted at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He joined a reserve unit to become an ROTC instructor for MIT undergraduates and married Hermann, a German graduate student he met at a café during his first year in Bamberg.

He never expected to be deployed again.

"Essentially you're on the equivalent of a list — if the Army needs you, they can activate you," he explained. "But normally, after you complete your active service, that's pretty much it."

Reservists who do get called up are given just a few weeks' notice before they must report for duty, however, and that suddenness can pose unique challenges.

"I would much prefer to be a regular Army guy [than in the reserves], because [the military] pulled him out of business school. What if he'd had a job?" said Capt. Alex Shrom '98, Gorbea's classmate and fellow ROTC participant.

Shrom noted that reservists are forced to spend a great deal of time apart from their families. "After training, they get on planes and they're history for a year," he said.

Preparations

It was Hermann who got the shocking news first. In July, 10 days after returning from their honeymoon in Paris, she opened his email to find a "stop-loss order" preventing any soldier from leaving his unit. The order is often issued to prevent people from quitting just before deployment.

Gorbea reassured her he wouldn't get mobilized, but Hermann wasn't convinced. Her sister's husband had received the same letter just before being sent to Iraq.

Two weeks later, Gorbea heard from the ROTC officer in charge of his reserve unit, and by early August, it was final: he was to report to Hartford, Conn., on Oct. 3. From there he would be sent to a base for training.

The timing, Gorbea said, is "inopportune" — but he is careful not to complain.

"It's a call to duty, a mission that asks for sacrifice," he said. "Hopefully, you're doing something for the future good and being part of something greater than yourself. Hopefully, you get over there, get the mission done and get back as soon as you can."

Focusing on what needs to be done is how Gorbea has spent his days since receiving the news. He is finishing a paper on Brazil so he can get credit for a half-semester at Sloan. He's looking into researching a thesis on cross-cultural leadership during his time in Iraq. And he's doing what he can to help prepare his wife for his departure.

Hermann came to the United States in August after an eight-month visa process.

"What is hard is moving to Boston and letting her give it a go alone," Gorbea said. "It's her first time in the States, working and living the English language."

From bank accounts to car insurance to grocery stores, it's the everyday things Hermann must learn before he leaves.

"Driving, my goodness, was a stressful event," Gorbea said. "Getting used to the streets in Boston — it's an eyeopener."

Between wrapping up schoolwork and taking care of details, he hasn't had time to pack. But with departure just a few days away, he's been thinking about the significance of his mission.

Gorbea had always had his reservations about the war; his wife was against it from the beginning. But now, after reading up on the Middle East, Gorbea believes the mission is too important not to complete — particularly his own role of training Iraqi soldiers.

On Sunday, he will put his life on hold to join that cause, because that was the commitment he made when he joined ROTC all those years ago.

"It's not something you look forward to — I'm certainly not itching to go to war," Gorbea said. "For me, it's more of a call to duty. It's within the scope of my job and I'll go and do my best to be part of this greater thing that the Army is trying to accomplish."