For Jonathan Greenlee and his friends in the Marine Reserves, the call to duty makes them part of a small group at Iowa State.

While many students in the armed forces are in programs that allow them to stay on campus, such as ROTC programs, about 42 ISU students are stationed abroad, according to the registrar’s office, and more are to leave this summer. Others have already been sent abroad and have returned home.

“Here I am going into a situation where I could see situations of life and death on a daily basis,” Greenlee said. “That’s just going to set in that there’s a lot of tough reality in the world. Most college kids aren’t really seeing that, they’re not dealing with the reality.”

Greenlee, junior in civil engineering, is a member of the First Battalion of the 14th Marine Corps based out of Waterloo, a unit that will be activated in mid-June and will most likely deploy to Iraq at the end of August.

Greenlee said he has considered himself lucky, as his unit has never deployed. As the situation in Iraq became calmer, he began to think he would be able to finish his college career normally. He said he did not foresee himself getting called up, but does not have a problem with it.

Adam Throne, senior in animal science, and Will Erwin, sophomore in computer science, shared Greenlee’s sentiments as they relaxed outside of Stomping Grounds, 303 Welch Ave., Thursday afternoon.

“Really, it makes you feel differently when you look at things,” Throne said. “We’re not going to have the little things that make us comfortable.”

They said their conversation changes as soon as they are together. The three can comfortably throw around military code and talk about training.

Erwin said people do not understand why they do certain things in the military, or why certain things are symbolic.

“The day you get out of boot [camp] — everyone remembers the day they got out of boot,” he said. “Mine was Aug. 26.”

Greenlee and Throne chimed in with a laugh.

“Oct. 26,” Throne said.

“Sept. 7,” Greenlee said.

Their unit received about two months notice of activation. Throne said he was one of the first to get the call about their deployment, which came on April 1.

“It came on April Fools Day — that didn’t help. I thought it had to be a joke,” he said.

Caleb Shinn, senior in elementary education, said he understands the feeling of when the call to duty interrupts education. Shinn is a member of the Army Reserve’s 394th Corps Support Battalion, but was deployed with a Missouri-based unit from February 2003 to August 2004. He said he was given three days notice before he had to report.

“I was excited to do my job. I joined the military to see the world, and I finally got to see it,” Shinn said. “But, it was five weeks into the semester — I had just gotten my first grades, and was finally getting all ‘A’s.”

Throne will graduate in May, and he said the deployment will come at the best time for him if it had to happen.

For Greenlee and Erwin, however, leaving their educations behind is a downfall to their deployment.

“The biggest thing is having to leave school, leave behind work opportunities,” Greenlee said. “But I’m trying to look at it as something that will be an interesting experience that not everyone will get to have — I’m kind of looking at the upshot of it.”

All three said they are confident they have the training they need to protect themselves and to carry out their duties. Erwin — the youngest of the three — said he worries, however, about experiences that might make it difficult to return to his normal student life.

“There’s circumstances over there that are less than ideal — they can be real nasty,” he said. “If something bad were to happen, I think it would be easier to make new friends than to have to come back and tell my old friends about it. I don’t want to have to joke around about it, don’t want to hear, ‘Did you kill anyone?'”

Shinn said he had to readjust to his life as a student when he returned and he found he was nervous about different things, like crowds and trash along the side of the road.

“You drive for 15 months in a foreign country, where things explode when you go by — you just have to get used to everyday life again,” he said.

The conveniences of being at home are the things that will be the most missed, such as the comfort of a bed and the luxury of air conditioning.

“It’s gonna be hot over there. Our doctor told us not to wear tighty-whities because of the sand — we’ll be so sweaty that you can get chaffing. That’s straight from the doc,” Erwin said.