From the Marine Corps to Brown, meet the freshman war vet

Jonathan Hagedorn is not your typical freshman.

At age 23, and six months removed from fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan with the Marine Corps, Jon now finds himself dealing with the typical freshman grind.

Veteran Jon didn’t want to be defined by this experience and kept it to himself at first, until he realized how understanding his peers were.

The Tab sat down with Jon as he agreed to share some details about the fascinating three and a half years he spent in the Marines.

Why did you decide to join the Marine Corps?
I left high school totally rebelling, saying “I’m not going to go to college, it’s a waste of money, I’m going to do my own thing.” I ended up bouncing around friends’ houses in Canada, working with them, in construction gigs, and at The Museum of Flight in Seattle.

I was so lost, and a recruiter approached me and totally took advantage of how lost I was. He ask if I wanted to join the military and I was like “Fuck yeah, who doesn’t?” I got to basic training a year later.

I was stationed mainly in Camp Pendleton, SoCal, and for seven months I was in Afghanistan, too.

What was Afghanistan like?
It sucked.

It was a winter deployment so it got really cold, like in the 20s. The Taliban aren’t really in full swing in the winter — they sell their opiate crops in the spring, use that money to fight all summer long and in the winter they’re more just like harassing us, because they’ve spent all their money at that point.

A bunch of my friends got blown up. We lost one guy, it could have been much worse. I was super lucky — my truck didn’t get blown up and I never had to shoot anybody which feels kind of nice. I get to be a little less fucked up, which is always a plus.

How smooth has the transition been, coming to an Ivy League school?
It was actually harder during the five months I was living in New York City as a civilian straight out of the military than it was transitioning from the Marines to Brown. For some reason in this environment, I feel like I can be myself much more, not just hiding in my room.

While I was in the military I grew in a completely different direction than people who go to university, so now that I’m here I’m still dealing with some of the same problems that most of the 18-year-olds are, but I also have a lot more life skills in other sectors.

And then there are things that just don’t transfer over, like my ability to use explosives or guns. My ability to do somersaults is the only weird skill that has so far transferred during Unit Wars. I was the fastest one on the field I think! I’m in Unit 12, we won.

Do you have any stories you’d like to share?
The most shocked and surprised I was in Afghanistan wasn’t actually in combat. It’s super messed up, but I think it’s really funny.

Before this moment, we had gone on our first mission and on the way back my buddies’ truck got blown up and we were stranded in this really weird area all night long. We almost got into some really bad stuff, it was incredibly stressful, no sleep.

The next day, we get towed back to base by another platoon. I’m walking out of the truck, and it’s like walking backwards down these steps at the back of the truck. We’re allowed to brings snacks, and someone was just throwing stuff from the truck to clean it out, and there was a big bag of Lays potato chips on the ground behind me. I stepped back on top of it and it popped so loud I thought it was an explosive. I almost peed my pants and was like “Oh no, that’s it, I’m dead.” The sergeant was just there shaking his head like “Dude, you have to relax.”

That was the most frightening moment in Afghanistan for me personally. The stress gets you pretty amped.

How did you spend your limited free time?
Drinking in the Marine Corps was huge. We would drink so much, there were guys that would drink handles of alcohol a night, a 30-rack of beer to themselves and get drunk and hang out or get drunk and cause a scene in town. Marines have a really bad rep wherever they’re stationed.

I knew a Delta Force guy who summed up why military people act the way they do. They’re the same age as college students, so imagine college students and the trouble they get into, but you’re giving those people a paycheck they usually spend on food and alcohol and you only give them a couple of days a month to actually relax. We would go nuts.

Time becomes precious. We would mostly listen to typical teenage girl music and watch teenage girl movies because they’re designed to make people feel good about themselves. So we would be blasting Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry in the trucks in Afghanistan, and rolling through the countryside listening to Dark Horse and Wrecking Ball and screaming the lyrics at the top of our lungs. In the military, I probably watched Pitch Perfect about a dozen times.

Would you ever go back?
You know, I wouldn’t.

People are always asking if I’m going to go be an officer or do ROTC, but the Marine Corps is special in how shitty it is sometimes. It just ages your body really fast, like my knees and back are all messed up now. I have poor hearing and tinnitus, and other psychological issues that come with all of it.

So no, I wouldn’t do it again, but it was the best thing I could’ve done for myself. I forced myself through this dark period and now I can just enjoy myself. This place is a relative paradise compared to that.