Friends and family enjoy the last few moments with Mark Haselhoff before he departs for Afghanistan.
From a school of 1200 to a troop of 3000, Northwestern student Mark Haselhoff will have a different senior year than he might have expected.
When he was younger, Haselhoff remembers being captivated by what he’d see on television commercials that advertised for the armed forces. He would always ask his parents to stop and allow him time to look over the Army displays at the county or state fairs. If enlisting in the army meant he could ride in helicopters and shoot guns, then you could count him in.
When he was old enough to weigh the costs and responsibilities of enlisting with many other aspirations he had for his life, he thought things through and felt confident in his decision to join the Army. Money for college may have been one of the primary concrete reasons he chose to enlist, but knowing he’d be given the opportunity to serve his country was a spark of inspiration that kept resonating in his heart.
It was over five years ago when Haselhoff’s decision to enlist in the Army National Guard was made final. Between his junior and senior year of high school he completed basic training. After graduating high school, he was able to tackle Advanced Individual Training before coming to Northwestern.
“Balancing school and training really hasn’t been a problem for me,” Haselhoff said. During his three years at NW, he had one weekend of training every month and two weeks during the summers. Up until now, his participation in the Army has never interfered so much with his education that he wasn’t able to manage. Now, however, this is not the case.
It was last year, right after Haselhoff had started dating his girlfriend Carrie Muilenburg, that he found out he and his troop would be sent to Afghanistan. “He was told a year in advance,” Muilenburg said, “so we could have as much time as possible to say goodbye.” When asked how she was handling the situation, Muilenburg looked up with glistening eyes and said, “It’s frustrating. I miss him.”
From a computer in California, Haselhoff sends an email that echoes his girlfriend’s words. “The hardest thing was knowing that I would have to say goodbye to all my family and friends for a year. My mom was really concerned about the possibility of a deployment when I enlisted but she took it a lot better than I thought she would,” Haselhoff said.
In early November, Haselhoff and nearly 3000 other soldiers will travel through nine time zones to reach Kabul, Afghanistan, where he’ll be stationed until August 2011. “We will be doing a police mission there,” Haselhoff said. “That will involve training the police force so they will be able to take over and run the police stations themselves.” He went on to mention the corrupt police force and how he hopes he will be able to meet many locals in Kabul.
Muilenburg asks for prayers that will strengthen Haselhoff to be a light within his troop. Of the people he has connected with, he’s met just four or five Christian men. “I’m trying to look at this like a long mission trip since we will be helping the people a lot. It definitely isn’t the type of mission that most people would think of when they hear that a person is being deployed,” Haselhoff said. He knows many of the men in his troop will be sitting at a base all day. “That might be safer,” he said, “but we have a much better chance of making a difference. I really do feel like there is a reason that God has me going on this mission.”
