When college graduation nears, students begin to feel relieved and excited to start their new lives and enter the job market. Graduation for some, however, means becoming a soldier.
Harry Mars, a former psychology major, graduated in December. Instead of putting on a new suit and tie for job interviews, Mars dressed in an Army uniform to make the transition from student to soldier.
“You’re making a transition from sitting around going to classes, sitting around going to bars and playing Xbox – next thing you know you have this great responsibility. When I sit back and think about it, it is pretty mind-boggling,” he said before his graduation.
Maj. Stanley Jones, chairman of the Department of Military Science and Leadership at VCU, said he remembers what he was thinking as he made that same transition 15 years ago.
“I was looking forward to graduation and just getting out and going on active duty and just being in the Army,” Jones said. “You know there is a lot out there that you don’t know, but you’ll never get to figure it out unless you get out there and you start doing it.”
Jones ended up in Germany after graduating in 1989 from Loyola University. He still recalls his days between finishing college and waiting for his duty assignment.
“I knew I was going overseas, but I didn’t know where I was going,” he said. “Imagine – I don’t want to say like you’re taking a trip – but knowing that you’re going to go somewhere. You just want that time to hurry up and just go do it.”
Maj. Ivan Mikolic remembers being nervous about stumbling on his lines during his graduation ceremony.
“I was nervous about the ceremony. I was just thinking about the task at hand,” Mikolic said. “I didn’t want to screw up my lines. I wanted to make sure I recited the oath without stumbling on my words.”
Mars’ path to graduation hasn’t been a smooth one.
“There were a few bumps in the road,” he said. “I had a full-time job all the way through college, and I got sidetracked a few times – all the stress of having to put up with college and the ROTC course curriculum, and sometimes it got pretty overwhelming.”
But with that finished, Mars said he was looking forward to the future while feeling a sense of relief and a sense of pride.
“It’s a relief to be done with college,” he said. “It’s a great feeling now that I’m done with school, and that I’m going to lead soldiers now. Hopefully, I’ll do a good job.”
For Mars’ graduation, VCU’s military science department conducted a special military service in honor of his completion of the program. Family and friends attended the ceremony that involved Army traditions including the oath of office, the first salute and the silver dollar exchange.
During the ceremony, Jones said after an officer takes the oath of office, he salutes the higher ranking official.
“In appreciation for being the first person to salute them as a noncommissioned officer,” he said, “they present them with a silver dollar.”
The silver dollar presentation is believed to be based on the $1 wage for an enlisted British military adviser in 1816. The adviser’s $1 pay has been discontinued, but appreciation of that tradition still remains.
“It’s one of those old Army traditions and the issue now is (with) our Internet, our debit, our credit card society,” Jones said, “it’s hard to actually find a silver dollar to use.”
This is a difficulty Mars knows well.
“I tried a few places, and they were either sold out or didn’t carry it. Then I went online to eBay and actually bid for the item, and it never came in the mail,” he said. “So my girlfriend, she just happened to come across one. She gave it to me and bailed me out, but it was pretty difficult trying to find one.”
Following graduation, Mars will serve as an Army recruiter for the University of Richmond, before leaving in March for six months of training at Fort Eustis. There he will learn where and when he will be assigned to duty, which could be at any of the U.S.’s bases around the globe.
“That in itself is pretty – I wouldn’t say scary, but you know – the suspense,” Mars said.