While some people might argue that Mansfield has not changed very much in the last 35 years, the world itself is a much different place than it was in 1984. For one thing, it was a time before the smartphone revolutionized our lives; we needed coins to make phone calls, maps to find our way, and cassette tapes to listen to music on the go.
George Orwell had warned of a dystopian future in his novel “1984,” but his themes of constant war, government surveillance, and disinformation seem more pertinent today than they did back then. That is not to say that life in 1984 was idyllic: we lived under the often ignored, but existential threat of total war. In central Europe, two massive, nuclear-armed armies faced off; a divided Germany was that era’s ground zero with more than 300,000 U.S. service members stationed on the continent.
Our very large Army needed a lot of new officers every year and the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) was its primary source for new Second
Lieutenants, the entry-level rank for officers. In the early 1980s, Mansfield had a very robust Army ROTC program with dozens of students involved from freshmen to seniors. I knew since adolescence that I wanted to serve in the military and was very pleased that “Mansfield State College” had an ROTC program.
I graduated from Mansfield in 1984 with a degree in political science, but I tell a lot of people that I majored in ROTC. I say that for two reasons, the first is that the cadet experience is more than just a few hours in the classroom every week. Especially as upperclassmen, we were involved in a variety of activities which included planning and executing training (such as, night patrol exercises in the local state forests), public speaking events, and confidence building “labs” like rappelling down ropes off the roof of Laurel Hall.
The other reason I say that I majored in ROTC is that I attribute my professional accomplishments since then to the preparation I received at Mansfield in ROTC. For several reasons, including finances, I had moved back home to Wellsboro and transferred to Mansfield to complete my last two years. It was my second chance to earn a college degree. Implicitly and explicitly, I was challenged to be “all that I could be” (also the Army recruiting slogan at the time), and it appeared that the more I took on, the more I seemed to thrive. The support from my professors and ROTC instructors was tremendous. I ended up becoming a Distinguished Military Graduate and left home to begin my career as a Regular Army officer the day after commencement. I would spend most of the next 33 years in the service.
Until 1993, I would serve with tank units in Germany, and the highlight of that experience was bearing witness to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. But with the end of the Cold War and the massive military downsizing that occurred, I decided to change careers and start anew in human resource management. Being a Solider was in my blood, and after a six-year break, I returned to part-time service in the Army Reserve and after another three years, I joined the Pennsylvania National Guard.
I loved being a Guardsman, especially being able to help my fellow Pennsylvanians during disasters, but the post-9/11 period was a busy time for all components of the Army, and it was a great challenge for citizen-soldiers like me to balance military and civilian careers. From 2003 to 2008, I was mobilized on active duty for 32 months, helping to keep the peace in Kosovo and leading a team of combat advisers in Afghanistan. Both deployments were tough, especially when comrades fell on the battlefield, but they were also personally fulfilling.
Military service is not for everyone, but it certainly was a good life for me. Some of the experiences I have had are priceless: like being thanked by a former-East German because the presence of American troops standing watch on the inter-German border offered him hope for freedom, or seeing the happy expressions on Kosovar kids’ faces when my troops provided a poor village with supplies for their one-room school. It was the people who made it worthwhile, and throughout my career—from Pennsylvania to Afghanistan—I would encounter fellow Mountaineers proudly serving the nation.
I sometimes wonder if 35 years after their college graduation, people are surprised by where they have ended up. I find my path since Mansfield to have been surprising and somewhat ironic. When I left active duty, I gave up on my dream of being a “lifer,” making Lieutenant Colonel, and commanding a tank battalion, but I did that and much more in the National Guard. I had transferred to Mansfield as a lackluster student seeking a second chance and never thought I would continue my education after graduation, but I have since earned a doctorate and now work in higher education.
Last year, a few months after I retired, my journey of military service came full circle. Lt.Col. Jon Britton, the commander of the ROTC battalion which includes Mansfield, invited me to return to campus to help commission two new Army officers who were graduating. Newly out of uniform, for me it was like the passing of the torch to a new generation of great Army officers from Mansfield University.
The uniquely American idea of formally educating officers to lead citizen-soldiers is 200 years old this year, and Army ROTC remains the ultimate leadership development program at any university. Today, it continues to produce over 40% of the new Lieutenants for the Army, most of whom go on to serve in the National Guard and the Reserve.
Over the years, the Mountaineer program has had its ups & downs, but thanks to a dedicated cadre of Soldier-leaders and great support from the administration, it is rebounding and commissioning officers again. I feel very fortunate to be an alum of Mansfield’s ROTC program, and I am proud to stand in the ranks with its many great officers—past, present and future.
The Writer
After graduating from Mansfield University in 1984, Dr. George Schwartz served in the active and reserve components of the U.S. Army until his retirement in 2017 at the rank of Brigadier General. In his final roles, he served simultaneously as an Assistant Adjutant General for the Pennsylvania National Guard and as the Deputy Commandant (Reserve Affairs) at the U.S. Army War College. Throughout much of his professional career, he has worked in human resource management, but he is now an Assistant Professor of Leadership at Immaculata University. He lives in Lancaster County, PA with his wife, Nicole (also a Mansfield graduate) and their two daughters.
Editors Note:
Dr. Schwartz is working with the Alumni Relations Office to form a group of Mansfield ROTC & Veterans Alumni. If you were in Mansfield's ROTC program or you are a Veteran, please send us an email at
alumni@mansfield.edu
and tell us about your service history. We will add you to our ROTC & Veterans group mailing list and keep you informed of the group's activities. An initial meeting for this ROTC & Veterans Alumni group is planned during Alumni Weekend on Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 10 a.m. To participate, please register at
mansfield.edu/alumni/events
.
