Local Marine returns from Iraq, becomes GCSU undergraduate

Although accepted into GCSU for the fall 2005 semester, Kegan Kelly took his high school diploma straight to the U.S. Marines upon graduation. At 18 years old he devoted the next four years of his life as an active duty Marine. Deployed in infantry to Iraq for two seven-month tours, he’s finally enrolled at GCSU four years later.

“I joined the Marines for a combination of reasons,” Kelly said. “There is the patriotism and all the stuff that sounds pretty. But there was also the motivation to go to school afterwards. It was the romantic ‘what would the 6-year-old in me want me to do in this situation?’ ”

Entering into his first deployment in 2006, he was located outside of where the Battle of Fallujah took place in 2004. Kelly described being in the middle of unconventional warfare, where the enemy could easily mix in with civilians. Marine forces were usually fighting an unidentifiable terrorist enemy.

“The war we are fighting over there is not a conventional war where we are fighting a uniformed army,” Kelly said. “This makes it more dangerous for us, but also for the civilian population. To win we must win over the civilian population, which is complicated, and to do that you have to start out with kinetics.”

Kinetics is active fighting and being prepared for all out war at all times, whether its bombs dropping or bullets flying. Kelly said he experienced this daily as he worked terrain and vehicle patrol.

On his second deployment a year later Kelly was stationed in the city of Ramadi, a place he calls the “last major stronghold of Iraq.” Upon arriving he saw evidence of unconventional warfare working to restore communal stability. While there, Kelly was appointed sergeant and he led seven other Marines and at least four other Iraqi police.

“We were rebuilding the city and structure of their government,” Kelly said. “It’s all the little things that build up to big things. Our goal was to get the Iraq police force trained to do our job.”

Winning over the civilians and tribe leaders, known as Sheiks, the Marines were given an Iraqi police force to direct. The civilians themselves began obtaining intelligence and reporting to U.S. forces. It seemed that progress was being made as Marines coincided with the Iraq police force and warfare transferred to non-kinetic strategies, Kelly said, and that he was only shot at three times.

During his entire experience in Iraq, Kelly admits that college was viewed as a distant reward for serving his time in the Marines. While warfare and fighting terrorism can reshape the perspectives of military personnel, Kelly said he was not void of this new burden.

“It was sick to see what terrorism has done,” Kelly said. “Terrorism is more or less an unbeatable evil. Terrorists there go into civilians’ houses in the middle of the night and they will tell the man of the household, ‘We will give you 20 dollars to go dig this ditch and plant this bomb. If you don’t we will cut your wife’s head off and kill your kids.’ These terrorists would do some pretty evil stuff. It took us a long time with unconventional warfare to get the (Iraq police) force out there to stop this. They needed to trust us to protect them.”

At the end of his deployments, Kelly reflects on all the effort and men put into the wars inside Iraq and Afghanistan.

“From what I saw with my last deployment, I feel like we did a great job of fixing what was damaged and putting stuff in the civilians’ hands that they originally wouldn’t have had control of,” Kelly said. “Yet, my personal opinion is that we cannot just pull out as everybody wants to. Government stability is a new concept to the Iraqi culture and we are trying to teach them. Without us being there, the leaders fall back into lazy disarray.”

As Kelly walks campus grounds or rides his skateboard between classes, he keeps in touch with many of his Marine Corp friends still serving overseas.

“I still have a lot of friends over there; one in my company just lost his legs,” Kelly said. “These are kids, the same age as freshman running through the hallways. They are fighting over there, getting shredded and dying. I want America to keep them in mind or their prayers.”

Similar to Kelly’s situation now, there are also other GCSU students with family and friends serving overseas. For the families of soldiers and Marines, life can be very stressful. Kelly recalls how his deployment affected his family.

“This war put my mom through hell and my dad was a wreck the whole time I was deployed,” Kelly said. “They were both always watching the news and waiting for that unwanted phone call.”

Now a student a GCSU, Kelly is grateful to be in school and back in the U.S. At 22 years old, Kelly is on inactive ready reserve for the Marines for the next four years as he attends school. He is trying to readjust to the American lifestyle and appreciate his “good life” back in his home country.

“While I was over there I saw some really awful stuff. I was in height and fear for my life for a long time. That can do traumatic stuff to you,” Kelly said. “But I think, having come through it – whether it was luck, being blessed, or being vigilant – it has made me a better person and more respectful toward American lifestyles and this school. This is the best my quality of life has ever been, especially coming out of war where I slept on sidewalks, bombs were going off and I was just waiting for my number to go off. This is a good life.”

Although GCSU does not currently offer a scholarship or program specifically for members of the military, there are veterans receiving a variety of forms of financial aid, such as tuition assistance, the GI Bill, the Georgia’s HERO scholarship and other state grants.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 23 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry