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Trading in guns for books

By Debbie Marsh
dmarsh@mscd.edu

Metro students Jason Andrade and Liam Nevins learned how to shoot in the military: One of them captured people on film, the other can pick someone off from more than a mile away. Neither man would be in school if it weren’t for their service in the armed forces.

“There were two times I had to draw my weapon. Both times I wondered if that was the day I was going to die,” said Andrade, 33, sprawled across a hard plastic chair in the student lounge.

He sips a diet Mountain Dew while he talks about his years as a Marine photographer. Affable and approachable, he momentarily lets the somber words erase the hint of a smile that hovers almost continuously on his mouth.

Liam Nevins, 26, who is a business finance major, wears intensity across his face like the ever-present stocking cap pulled down tightly on his head. Combined with a rock hard body that would be the envy of many athletes, it’s not hard to imagine Nevins in combat.

But it’s the piercing blue eyes you can’t forget. They never rest on anything for long. It’s a bit unsettling when you know that Nevins was an Army sniper for five and a half years.

”I’ve got a lot of friends who got killed,” he says matter-of-factly.

Andrade and Nevins are but two of approximately 500 students on the G.I. Bill at Metro alone, according to Office of Veteran’s Services director Janet Maestas.

They may be actual veterans, on active duty or a veteran’s descendant, but they (or their parent) all elected to pay money into a fund while they began serving in the armed forces in order to receive many times that initial amount in benefits for college later on.

Andrade never seemed headed for the military in his younger days. Even as a kid, Andrade said that he never liked fighting or guns. And his was a family where nobody followed through, where commitments weren’t kept.

In his early 20s, he began abusing drugs and alcohol. He was on a downward spiral, falling into depression.

Andrade knew he had to make a change or his lifestyle was going to kill him. The military provided the structure his home environment was lacking.

He wound up in the Marine Corps because, he said, “They came to my house and talked the best game.”

Nevins was born in northeast Philadelphia to a working class family. He didn’t have the opportunity to pursue a college degree.

“I’ve always done labor jobs, like since I was 12,” he said.

Nevins was also a problem child who didn’t have any direction and wound up getting in trouble a lot. Influenced by movies like “Apocalypse Now” and coupled with his competitive nature, Nevins eventually decided to join the Army to propel him out of his blue-collar environment and run-ins with the law.

Both men signed up for the military before the war in Iraq had started.

“I didn’t expect to ever have to use my craft. Nobody did,” Nevins said.

The act of shooting was a tiny percentage of what he did in the Army, and he notes that, “you can be very discriminatory” about taking out the bad guy with a rifle when compared to the mass damage inflicted by a missile.

Andrade was deployed once to Iraq and began his career in photojournalism. He was attached to a combat infantry unit for historical documentation.

“I saw some pretty horrible things,” he said.

He was fortunate to also work with a civil affairs unit, which was responsible for good rapport with Iraqi citizens.

They helped in orphanages and civilian housing, and Andrade welcomed the positive interaction. When asked if he owns any guns today, Andrade replied, “No, never. I don’t ever want to touch another gun in my life.”

Both men credit the military with making them better people.

“It gave me the tools for the rest of my life to make decisions,” Andrade said. He proudly added, “I did my job, and I did it well.”

Nevins said that his service in the Army designed his future. “I have no regrets whatsoever. I miss it every day.”