By Karen Feldscher

War is hell — that's a given.

Uncertainty. Fatigue. Pain. Separation from family. Long days. Longer nights. The prospect of killing. The fear of being killed. Watching others die.

But six Northeasterners who have served during wartime — three of them currently on active duty — say they wouldn't trade their war experiences for anything.

Because they learned, and they grew. Some grew deeper; others, stronger.

Whether they were on a battlefield or in a command center, flying a fighter jet or nursing injured soldiers, these men and women say war gave them a chance to work with others during tough situations. A window onto other cultures. An opportunity to discover new skills. Insight into the true meaning of work. The tightest friendships they've ever known.

And, always, hard lessons in how to function in the face of death.

Edward Tutun

DAYS IN THE SKY, NIGHTS IN LONDON TOWN

Edward Tutun, E'47, retired executive vice president of W. R. Grace and Company, had to learn a lot about death during his stint as a U.S. Air Force aerial gunner in World War II.

Thirty times during 1944, the technical sergeant flew out of England on a B-17 Flying Fortress to conduct bombing missions over Germany. Hundreds of other young Americans, day in, day out, were doing the same thing. Four times, he says, "we lost over sixty planes on a single afternoon. There were ten men to a plane. That's six hundred on each of those days."

Tutun perched in a rotating turret on the open-air plane, wearing an oxygen mask and an electrically heated suit (affectionately dubbed a "blue bunny") to protect him from temperatures that dipped to sixty below. "We looked like infants in snowsuits," he recalls. Changes in air pressure gave him severe ear pain. "Not the most comfortable thing," he says wryly.

Of all the missions Tutun flew, "there wasn't one time we came back without holes in the airplane," he says. "I had people get shot next to me.

"The amazing thing," he says, "is that you have German fighters trying to shoot you down, but on the intercom you speak to each other in calm tones. Nobody hollers or screams. You know the only way you can get out of there is to work your way out, so you do it in the best possible manner."

Given the horror of their days, you'd think Tutun and his buddies would have had trouble sleeping. Not so. For one thing, they were exhausted. Missions lasted ten to twelve hours; their days stretched to eighteen, even twenty hours.

Plus, they wanted to stay awake. "We were young," he explains. "We chased girls. We'd go into town at night, have a few English beers, meet an English girl, go dancing. There was a truck that would take us from the air base into town, and the last truck back was at eleven-thirty at night. We'd get back to the air base around twelve-thirty. Frequently, they'd call us at one-thirty for the next mission. We'd sleep in the truck, whenever we could."

No question life during wartime was rough, says Tutun. But it built character.

"Many times in my business career, I had some difficult choices to make," he says. "I would always ask myself, What's the worst that can happen? It's not going to kill me — I've been there and done that. So it definitely taught me what's important.

"War is hell, but it can also be a great molder and developer of people."

Ernest Washington

A DEEP REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE

Pretty much everything Ernest Washington Jr., MPA'80, does — in his family life, his work, his community — is inspired by his Vietnam experience.

Washington, the fifty-seven-year-old president and CEO of Vanguard Parking Services (which helps manage Northeastern's parking garages and cleaning services) was a Marine rifleman and team leader in Vietnam from February to November 1967. Or, as he puts it, "Nine months, twenty-nine days, eleven hours — to be exact."

He went into "some of the darkest holes in Vietnam," he says. The first person he killed was a woman who was shooting at the tank he was in. Everyone in the tank fired back, but it was Washington's round that hit her. Later, his best friend, Sonny Davis Jr., was killed in Con Tien when his command bunker was blown up by a mortar round.

The young corporal dealt with racist remarks from drill instructors and fellow soldiers. He learned how to work with everyone. And watch his back every minute. All of it, he says, helped him grow. Even the bad stuff. Especially the bad stuff.

When he got home, he says, "I made a promise to those who spit up blood for this country that I would go to work." That's not uncommon, he says. Lots of Vietnam vets "have gone to work for the community and never stopped. Money hasn't been an issue."

Washington stayed close with Sonny's parents until they died. And he got involved with the veterans' advocacy movement.

"That's the only reason I'm still alive today," he says, noting that many men who served with him either died in the war or led troubled lives after returning to America. "I had to get in the circle with other guys who went through the same experience and talk about it."

It's become his preferred communication style: "I try to get my family to do the same thing. We got a problem with each other? Let's all get in one room and hash it out."

Having to kill a woman stunned him. But the encounter also gave him tremendous respect for his enemy. "They [the Viet Cong] were willing to sacrifice every man, woman, and child to get us out of there," he says. "In a sense, they were fighting the same kind of struggle that black folks in America were fighting. Like, you just don't go into someone else's house and tell them what to do."

As a team leader in Vietnam, Washington learned how to oversee his squad. "I managed them through some of the toughest situations imaginable," he recalls. "Impossible situations. So I think I'm a pretty good manager today. I know how to get a day's work out of people."

Most important, though, Washington says Vietnam gave him a high regard for human life. Including his own. "After taking life, I respect it more," he says. "Every day is gravy, and I try to live it that way."

Richard "Butch" Neal

IN THE EYE OF DESERT STORM

Retired general Richard "Butch" Neal, Ed'65, saw plenty of action during his thirty-six years with the Marines.

Some of it he handled in front of millions of people around the world.

In the early 1990s, when he was deputy of operations under General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Neal gave daily briefings to the press corps covering the Persian Gulf War. The job made him a mini-celebrity.

"I didn't understand the magnitude of the exposure at the time," he says. "I remember my wife saying to me, ‘You can't realize what it's like — you're on every TV station all the time, every radio all the time.'"

After twenty-some years of command and staff assignments, Neal was recruited to serve as Schwarzkopf's deputy because he'd spent three years in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s, training officers from several countries in military planning. "I knew the region and a lot of the key players," he says. "Many of those countries we worked in became members of the coalition forces during Desert Storm. And many of the officers we trained were involved as planners at our headquarters before and during the war."

Originally, his job was to get Schwarzkopf the information he needed to make military decisions. "Basically, I ran the war room for General Schwarzkopf at night," says Neal. "Beginning around six every night, till nine or ten the next morning, I observed everything going on, responded to queries from Washington, and worked with the coalition operations center and with commanders out in the field."

Neal was pressed into duty as a spokesperson only after his colleagues realized that, in an era of intense media scrutiny, they weren't talking to the press particularly effectively. "All of a sudden, we realized how important that responsibility was, now that CNN was here," says Neal. "This was really the first war that was on television all the time."

Although another general had been assigned to conduct the press briefings, it took him a lot of time every day to get up to speed, with much of his information coming from Neal.

Finally, he recommended to Schwarzkopf that Neal take over the briefings several times a week.

"I started doing them, and obviously it was working," recalls Neal. "So when the time came for the chief to come in and spell me, Schwarzkopf just said one word: ‘Why?' Which meant ‘No.'"

And so a star was born. But Neal saw his very visible role during the Gulf War as much less crucial than his other duties. Like helping to put complicated stratagems in place, especially the day the war began.

"We didn't know how many planes were going to get shot down," he says. "You think, What did I forget? What did I do that was not right? I felt like I had a big hole in my stomach."

Neal says working closely with Schwarzkopf was a one-of-a-kind learning experience.

"I was watching probably the most important commander since World War Two," he says. "Helping him was very satisfying. All the planning, all the work we did — we obviously did it right."

Jessica Pesce

THE WOUNDS OF WAR

Twenty-five-year-old Jessica Pesce, BHS'02, GB'03, has already learned a lot about the strength of soldiers.

Since March, Pesce, a first lieutenant, has been working at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, Texas, helping to heal the wounded from Iraq. Some of the injuries are devastating. Missing limbs. Severe burns. Gunshot and shrapnel wounds.

"Your heart goes out to these guys," says Pesce, whose degrees are in physical therapy. "A lot of these injuries are so terrible, you just can't help feeling emotional about your patients. It's very challenging, trying to be ready for so many different kinds of injuries."

But she finds the soldiers' resolve even more astonishing.

"They surprise me every day," she says. "They always want to do more. A lot of them are going back to active duty as soon as they can. If they're amputees, they can't go back to the infantry, but they take other jobs in the Army. It's so motivating for me. Because what I want to do as a physical therapist is work with people who want to get better."

Before Texas, while waiting to go on active duty, Pesce worked in outpatient physical therapy in Connecticut. What she does now is nothing like that. "In the civilian world, the physical therapists do the treatment," she says. "Here, we're more involved in planning, taking on more of a doctor's role. It's supervisory, making me think at a much higher level."

This winter, Pesce, who was in ROTC at Northeastern, will take her service a step further — to Iraq. She's volunteered to go.

She'll be one of two physical therapists serving in a 250-bed combat hospital. "There will be long, long days," she says. "But that's how you learn.

"If I said I wasn't worried," she adds, "it would be a lie. But I'm more excited than anything else. Physical therapists in the Army are finally taking on different roles. People are realizing how much we are capable of, and they are putting us closer to the action."

SATISFACTION OF A JOB WELL DONE

Keeping things running, in the middle of hostile territory, is what Lieutenant Dan Kestle, AS'84, aims for every day. Keeping people connected.

The forty-three-year-old Kestle — a former Northeastern ROTC man, now a married father of two teens — commands the Army's 29th Signal Battalion, currently deployed in Iraq. The unit, from Fort Lewis, Washington, is based at a logistics support area dubbed Camp Anaconda, about forty-five miles north of Baghdad, near the village of Balad. Anaconda is a huge operation, home to approximately 23,000 soldiers, with its own airfield and a combat surgical hospital.

Kestle is in charge of roughly 700 soldiers in Iraq. They've been there about eight months. Kestle says chances are good they'll all be home by the middle of next year.

The 29th Signal Battalion provides secure voice and data communications systems for the multinational forces operating out of Anaconda as well as in nearby towns. They set up antennas and switches, run cable, mount equipment on trucks, and make sure signals are as clear as possible. "I've got some very smart people backing me up," says Kestle.

They're not a combat unit. "We're not the guys who kick in doors," Kestle says. "We're the guys who help those guys communicate." But they're still in danger. Every day.

"We have sustained literally hundreds and hundreds of rocket and mortar attacks since we hit the ground," Kestle says. He worries particularly about his teams working in Mosul, Fallujah, and Najaf. "More often than not, there are days when you don't need a cup of coffee to get your heart pounding," he says.

As of late September, no one in his battalion had been killed. "We've been very fortunate," he says.

And very busy. Kestle's day stretches from six in the morning to eleven at night; most of his troops work twelve-hour days. Conditions are challenging. Sometimes the thermometer jumps as high as 130 degrees. Shorts and short-sleeved shirts are not allowed; the soldiers dress in long-sleeved camouflage uniforms, combat boots, and headgear. "They gave us some T-shirts that wick away the sweat," he offers. "It's not too bad. Actually, you get used to it."

Kestle has only good things to say about his battalion. "These young soldiers are motivated and smart," he says. "They're doing a wonderful job." His troops have even sponsored the opening of a new elementary school in the nearby village of Al Bu Hassan. The battalion arranged the funding; selected a contractor; monitored the construction; and provided desks, chairs, blackboards, and other school necessities. There was even a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

He is also impressed with the local Iraqis he's met. "They're wonderful people," Kestle says. "They're just like everybody else — they want a secure environment where they can have a job and take care of their children."

Maria Van Gelder

LIFE ON THE EDGE

Captain Maria Van Gelder, who's currently pursuing a master's in acute-care nursing at Northeastern, has a deep regard for human life. So deep she puts her own life in jeopardy with regularity.

Thirty-seven-year-old Van Gelder — everyone calls her "M.J." — is a flight nurse with the 514th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, the Air Force's premier overseas evacuation group. Since the beginning of the Iraq conflict, she's flown many missions into hostile territory to pick up wounded soldiers and take them to Ramstein Air Force Base, in Germany.

"Intense," she says. "Very intense."

She captains small crews of three to five medical personnel. They fly out of Germany or other locations, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, or Turkey. They transport and treat soldiers with grim wounds. "I don't know how I deal with it," Van Gelder admits.

The helicopters and planes in which they fly get shot at when they pass over war zones. "It's pretty perilous," Van Gelder says. And scary. "Sometimes you think the plane's going to get blown up, and you think, The minute I land, I'm getting out. Then you land, and you decompress, and you talk with your friends. And you get in control again.

"There's no nine-to-five," she adds. "Sometimes you're working twenty-four, thirty-two, even thirty-six hours in a row. You just keep going."

It helps to have a sense of humor, says Van Gelder. And to remember the importance of the work.

"It's fun, it's exciting, it's scary, it's stressful beyond belief, but it's worth it," she says. "You shield yourself with the armor of knowing you're doing what's right. When you see the looks on the faces of the soldiers you pick up, it's clear they now know they're going to live. That's when you know you're making a difference."

Van Gelder signed on with the Air Force during the Persian Gulf War, when the military was desperate for medical personnel. "I thought being a flight nurse sounded exciting," she says. "At the time, I was an emergency room nurse, unmarried, with no children. And I thought, ‘If everybody in my position said no, then who's going to help our guys?'"

Three weeks later, she was in Germany.

When that conflict ended, she continued to serve in other locales, such as Somalia and Macedonia, whenever a need arose.

Two years ago, Van Gelder's military commitments became so demanding that she gave up her full-time emergency-room job. These days, when she's at home in Branford, Connecticut, between military gigs, she works per-diem jobs at different hospitals.

She has a two-year-old son now. Friends and family help care for him when she's away. But she worries. "Every mission you fly you hope is going to be a good one," she says, "and that nothing goes wrong."

No question, Van Gelder's military service has disrupted her personal life. But she believes it's been worth it. She's honed her leadership abilities, she says, and she's met "people who have such inner strength and bravery in situations of stress, strife, turmoil."

Besides, she says, "for every horrible thing I do or see, I think there's going to be something good that happens to me."

NO REGRETS

When asked what they think about the current conflict in Iraq, some of these men and women voice doubt. Others express nothing but resolve.

Washington says he finds himself waking up in tears after he hears another young person has died there.

Neal is reluctant to offer an opinion but says, generally speaking, that those managing wars must remember to follow the "basic rules of war fighting," which include planning for all phases of an operation. Failing to do so, he says, puts at risk "our greatest resource — young men and young women in uniform."

Tutun's take: "We've gotta beat these birds. And it's better to beat them where they are than in Park Square."

Whatever their feelings about Iraq, all agree on one thing: They learned more during wartime than in any other period in their lives.

War has renewed Kestle's faith in other people.

Van Gelder says she's become strong in the face of suffering and fear.

And Washington credits his difficult months in Vietnam back in 1967 with shaping his strong commitment to family and community.

"I wouldn't trade the experience for the world," he says, "because it taught me so many things about life."

Karen Feldscher is a senior writer.

A War Memorial at Northeastern

The university is planning to erect an on-campus memorial for alumni who have died in service to their country during wartime.

The memorial is the brainchild of trustee chair Neal Finnegan, BA'61, H'98, whose visit to Normandy over the summer strengthened his commitment to the project. "The impact of seeing those beaches and those graves — it was stunning," he says. "I told myself, This is the right thing to do."

Finnegan says building a war memorial is part of his larger interest in honoring Northeastern's past in a tangible way on campus. "This is a hundred-year-old school that has some interesting history," he says. "As we modernize the Northeastern campus, I want to make sure we don't at the same time forget about our history."

Already, Finnegan has arranged to have an existing plaque memorializing Northeastern's 248 World War II casualties—which has languished in storage for many years—remounted in Richards Hall. He's got other historical projects in mind, too, such as raising awareness about the Snell family, who have donated millions to Northeastern, and about other prominent Boston families who helped shape Northeastern in its early years.

The biggest task in creating a veterans' memorial, Finnegan says, will be developing a comprehensive list of all the Northeastern alumni who have died during the nation's wars. A committee currently being formed will also be examining possible memorial locales and designs, and will start raising funds for the project.

— Karen Feldscher