Linda Coburn
After graduating high school, Jason Freudenrich went to work building boats at a factory in Minnesota. He spent the rest of the time partying. “I was going nowhere in life,” he said.
So at the age of 19, he talked to a Marine Corps recruiter and two weeks later was in boot camp. It was 1999.
“It was the best decision I’ve ever made,” said Freudenrich.
He wanted to travel, and travel he did. While serving on a supply ship, Freudenrich twice visited Okinawa, Japan, spent two weeks in Australia on a training exercise and also landed in New Caledonia, Thailand, the Philippines and Saigon.
Freudenrich was enjoying the experience. Then came Sept.. 11.
“That was the turning point,” he said.
On Jan. 14, 2003, his unit was the first of his Battalion to land in Kuwait. The date is firmly fixed in his mind.
On March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush announced on national television that a coalition force of more than 35 countries were “in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”
Corporal Freudenrich’s boots hit Iraqi sand on March 20, 2003.
He was assigned to a support unit responsible for repairing vehicles. They were based out of the aptly-named Camp Viper.
“I was a mechanic and a ‘mortar rounder,'” Freudenrich said. “That’s the guy that puts the mortars into the launchers,” he said.
Iraq was not a good experience. “I was in constant fear of being killed,” he said.
“I got shot at and I shot back” was all Freudenrich really wanted to say about his combat experience. He is ranked “expert” on the M16A2 service rifle.
At one point, his unit did not have any fresh food for three months, surviving just on Meals Ready To Eat, better known as MREs.
“It’s recommended you only go for 10 days on them, but there were problems with supply units getting hit and they couldn’t get fresh food to us,” he said.
After nine months in Iraq, his tour of duty was complete. Luckily Freudenrich was not put on the “stop-loss” list, which is when the military tells its personnel they can’t leave, even if their tour of duty is up.
After he was honorably discharged in 2003, he went back to Minnesota and spent six months working in his father’s metal recycling business.
“I just wanted to be alone and the job with my dad let me do that,” Freudenrich said.
He survived another winter in Minnesota and decided he never wanted to be cold again, so he came to California. He didn’t know anyone – he just knew he wanted to be warm and be close enough to the ocean to visit regularly.
When he first came to Pierce College in the Fall of 2005, he had no clue about what to do. “I just went to the Administration Building. They sent me somewhere else, then those people sent me somewhere else and then I was enrolled.”
Now Freudenrich, 27, is actually getting paid to go to college, thanks to the GI Bill of Rights.
His immediate goal is to transfer to California State University, Northridge, to get his bachelor’s degree in English. Freudenrich has completed almost every English class in the Pierce catalog.
“I liked English 28 the best, probably,” he said. “I like the structure of grammar.”
His mid-term goal is to teach English. Long-term, he would like to be a professor at Pierce.
“Pierce is an amazing establishment that people take for granted – there are lots worse places,” Freudenrich said.
Four years later, he still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He has a hard time sleeping; bad dreams of bad things keep waking him up.
But he did gain a new appreciation for long, hot showers.
“I’m still washing sand out of my ears,” Freudenrich joked.
Now his primary leisure-time activity is writing creative stories.
“I don’t party. I go to the beach about every other week,” he said. “I’m just a homebody.”
Originally, Freudenrich thought he would return to the Marine Corps after college.
“I love the Marine Corps,” he said. “I loved the military, but now I love civilian life even more. It’s nice waking up at 8 a.m,” he said with a laugh.
When he was referred to as a soldier, Freudenrich replied, “Army are soldiers; Marines are warriors.”
(Jason Freudenrich)
Jason Freudenrich, 27, former Marine now attending Pierce College studying to become an English professor with hopes to teach at Pierce. ()