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August
29, 2005 Vol. 77, no. 1F
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| MILITARY
MAN: ME senior and ROTC graduate John Makar
uses his Army training to help researchers test BLEEX, the Berkeley
Lower Extremity Exoskeleton. The device helps people like soldiers,
firefighters, and hikers carry a heavy load while making it feel
like a light load.
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Boots on
the ground
ME senior looks back on ROTC experience and ahead to Iraq
In the spring of 2003, ME student John Makar found himself choking
in a gas chamber. He was breathing chlorobenzylidene malonitrile, or
crystal saline gas, commonly used as a riot control agent. It filled
his lungs and burned his skin. After following the drill sergeant’s
instructions and clamping on his gas mask, Makar was finally allowed
to stumble out into the fresh air at Fort Knox, Kentucky. “It
was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had,” the senior
says. “But it’s meant to show you that your protective mask
works.”
In the military, like engineering, sometimes you have to apply a theory
to understand it. That spring, Makar was on leave from Berkeley Engineering
to do his basic training as an enlisted Army recruit.
“I was broke and I needed the money,” he says. Makar, who
wasn’t interested in the military when he arrived as a freshman,
joined up. Despite difficult moments like the gas chamber, he now enjoys
it, so much so that he moved from enlistment to officer training and
is now a graduate of Cal’s Army ROTC program. In December, after
he finishes at Berkeley, he’ll serve four years, he says, and
maybe make the Army a career. As an engineer, Makar says, “most
probably I’m going to Iraq.”
While
other seniors face the challenge of finding a job or applying to graduate
school, 22-year-old Makar faces his mortality. “I came to terms
with it before I signed the contract,” he says. “It’s
not a great thing if it happens, but at least I don’t have any
obligations, like a family, right now.”
ROTC also has its advantages,
Makar says. Aside from financial assistance, the program builds leadership
skills. “In class group projects, I set the agenda and make sure
things are getting done. Sometimes I have to tone it down a bit because
I forget the others aren’t in the military.”
He also says he appreciated
the program’s structured lifestyle, even if it meant rising at
5 a.m. to do PT, or physical training. Three times a week, he and the
battalion would stretch, then churn out pushups and sit-ups in the early
morning light, sometimes until “muscle failure.” Then they
might go on a ruck march, a long walk with a fully loaded, 60-pound
pack.
It’s the latter that
recently landed Makar a plum research job. In early May, the Berkeley
Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (BLEEX) project was looking for someone
with military marching experience. The job was to help test the device,
which assists someone, like a soldier, firefighter or hiker, in carrying
a heavy load while making it feel like a light load. One researcher
overheard a group of students talking about their ROTC experiences.
One of those students was Makar, and he was soon invited to participate
in the research. Now, Makar walks around in the BLEEX and provides feedback.
“They actually listen to what I say because I have the experience,”
he says.
Though he didn’t plan
to be in the military, Makar says it suits him well. “I know I
could make a lot of money if I went into civilian life,” he says.
“But this is probably one of the most selfless things I could
do in my life. And that makes me an okay person.”
For more on ROTC, go to
http://army.berkeley.edu/.
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