Edgar Luna is an unlikely member of the Tufts class of 2011. A Peruvian who was born in 1984 and who grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the freshman is currently on active duty for the U.S. Marines and has been deployed to Iraq two times within the past four years.
At Tufts, Luna is in the midst of making a monumental transition from a war zone to academia.
Luna decided to enlist in the armed forces during the spring of his senior year of high school after watching in dismay as several of his friends began talking to recruiters. As he made his best efforts to discourage them from enlisting, he began a bout of self-assessment.
With college a far-off impossibility, the initially-hesitant Luna decided to enlist.
Luna remembers the moment his attitude toward the Iraq war changed from one of complete support to one of reserved skepticism during his second deployment. Luna and another Marine had been assigned to do administrative work and operate on electronics. Driving by an SUV that exploded immediately after his passing, Luna was suddenly faced with images of his own death and a creeping sense of futility toward the work he was doing.
"Basically, that allowed me to think, 'You know what? I'm not willing to die here this time. I'm just not,'" he said.
This marked one of two major shifts in Luna's opinion toward the war. From eager support, to pessimism, to what is now a revitalized sense of hope as a result of the recent surge, the Marine's view of the war has been far from consistent
Regardless of how his position has shifted, Luna has experienced a huge amount of frustration with the way American citizens and politicians have reacted toward the war and the soldiers fighting in it.
Luna said there are two battling sides caught up in "political duress," who either support the troops by supporting their mission or who support the troops by pleading for their return to U.S. soil.
"Each one says they're more patriotic than the other," he said. "Caught between that, you've got all the troops. The fact of the matter is that they don't like to see any of their work shot up in vain."
During his second deployment, Luna began thinking about what seemed impossible four years earlier: a college education. Completing his application process in Iraq, Luna originally restricted his search to Florida state schools. But with encouragement from one of his high school teachers who had graduated from Georgetown, Luna began an application process that resulted in acceptances to an array of prestigious U.S. institutions, among them Boston University, the University of California at Los Angeles and Tufts.
When it came time to decide upon a school, the international vibe of Tufts appealed most to Luna.
"Tufts seemed like the most serious and internationally-oriented institution, so I said, 'If I want to get a worldly education - if I'm there to be serious, which was my intent at the time - I should go to Tufts.' And so I did," he said.
With a semester at Tufts under his belt, the international relations major and Wilson House resident explained both the successes and obstacles associated with his new life, many of which have stemmed from the overall anti-war, anti-military mentality of the large majority of students here.
"I've had some strong differences of opinion with people who are very opposed to my opinions or to what I knew," he said. "But anytime there's been an open mind and an intelligent person at the other end of the conversation, it hasn't been a problem, because we just exchange. I've been surprised with it."
But while his opinions have fostered discussion and debate, Luna said neither side has necessarily changed its view of the war. "They [other students] don't necessarily support the war or anything [now]," he said.
He added that his own view of the war is once again a positive one and hasn't been changed by the Tufts student body.
"I haven't had an epiphany yet about, 'Oh my God, you guys are right [about the war],'" he said.
Luna has also been frustrated with the public's view of the military as an entirely Republican entity.
"If you look at militaries, it's the only place free of politics," he said, explaining that the military has the tendency to be conservative, but in a non-political sense. "Politics are for the politicians; we [the military] don't need that."
During his Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) training to become a Marine officer, Luna does not allow the Marines under his command to discuss politics.
Because ROTC is not officially recognized by Tufts, Luna travels to Boston three times a week to participate in an ROTC program linked with BU and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But while at Tufts, Luna said that academics are his first priority, with international relations providing a basis for future endeavors.
"I want to get the background," he said. "Whatever I want to do, it's definitely going to be service-oriented, which is likely going to put me in some sort of foreign service. It makes sense for me to focus my education on what my intended life course is. I'm a very service-oriented person."
