From grades to grenades

Daniel is only one of several University students who are required by their home countries to spend time in the military either before or during their undergraduate years. Several of these students said their military and life experiences set them apart from their peers after they come to college as older students.

Being a 23-year-old freshman had both advantages and disadvantages for Daniel, who took time after his military term was up to travel around the world.

“My cognitive abilities are not as good as they used to be: I had forgotten things like calculus,” he explained. “At the same time, the maturity and mentality I’ve gained, it’s priceless. A lot of people here, even at 24, won’t have the same life experience.”

While his training was physically grueling, Daniel said the most challenging part of his three years in uniform was the mental stress of being a part of the intelligence force.

“The hardest thing entailed a lot of decisions I had to make as an 18-year-old kid, and I wasn’t always sure what to do,” he said. “I was given a lot of responsibility, and that was difficult as an 18-year-old. It was hard, but at the same time, I had no choice. I tried to make the best choice based on the experience I had.”

Given the nature of that intelligence work, which Daniel is only allowed to talk about in vague terms, he said he was often unaware of the outcomes of the choices he made. “I don’t know what my actions did, I don’t know what the consequences were, and that is the hardest thing,” he explained.

In Israel, the military service options are varied, and though everyone in the military is required to undergo basic training, not all assignments involve combat time, students said. Chen Lifshitz ’13, for example, spent two years serving in the foreign media department of the Israeli military doing public relations work.

Daniel said his experience also made it difficult at times to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with students on campus.

“People don’t understand what happens in real time,” he said. “It’s very different from what people think it is. There are many things people don’t know.”

South Korean male students are also required to serve in the military, but many South Korean students said they postpone their service until after they have completed at least a year of college. Seunghun Han ’13 was a member of the Class of 2008 before he took time off for medical reasons. While recovering at home, he used the time to complete his required service, which for most South Korean men is a 21-month commitment.

Though Han was able to work in an office because of his medical condition, he was still required to complete basic training. “I got to shoot M16s and throw rubber grenades,” he said, adding that his work after training was less combat-oriented. “In the district office I worked at, I learned a lot about how bureaucracy works,” he explained.

Most South Korean students at Princeton choose to take time off after either their sophomore or junior year, said Han, who explained that it’s difficult for people to find jobs in South Korea before they’ve finished their mandatory service.

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Sungmin Cho ’11 is taking a slightly different route, however. “Most people first get into college and then do service after their first year,” Cho said. “I didn’t want to halt the flow of my college in the middle.”

Cho considered serving right after graduating from high school, but he ultimately decided against it. “I just thought simply that I wasn’t mature enough yet.”

“After I graduate there’s a special option to be an officer in the Air Force,” Cho said. The three-year duration for that program is a year longer than the required service time, but Cho said he thinks it will be worth it to finish college uninterrupted.

Han, now a 25-year-old freshman, also found interrupting his education difficult. “I’m not a native English speaker, and three years [serving in South Korea] made me lose most of my English skills,” he said. “I’m struggling to get it back.”

Lifshutz, now 22, took additional time off to volunteer and travel after she completed her service and said that, though her background set her apart in some ways, she thought she still fit in on campus.

“It’s been different, but there are people from so many different backgrounds,” she said. “I’m just another one.”