Jessica Gilman is the embodiment of a non-traditional student. This 27-year-old junior is a married ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ veteran, who commutes to Western Massachusetts four days a week from Somerville.

Gilman grew up in a bi-racial military family in Hawaii. She left the Aloha State after high school to begin her college career at Northeastern University in Boston. Gilman signed an eight-year contract with the Army Reserve in her sophomore year at Northeastern, for what she said were a series of, “complex reasons.” She eventually left Northeastern primarily for financial issues.

As a member of the Army Reserve, Gilman is required to report to Attleboro for one weekend a month to honor a two-week yearly training regiment she obliged to serve as part of her enlistment. The purpose of the reserves, Gilman explained, is to supplement for active duty members of the military. She is an E5, or a Sergeant and trained as an engineer. Her unit has been active in community service projects throughout the South Shore of Massachusetts.

In 2003, Gilman received notification that her company was being sent to a Processing/Assembly Area in Kuwait. She says was not told exactly how long she would be serving there.

Gilman said that this was one of the toughest parts of her time overseas, not knowing when she would return. She spent the bulk of her time working on construction projects.

“It was a lot of concrete work,” Gilman said, adding that temperatures were as high as 116 degrees farenheit. “It was like sticking your face in an oven.”

As an E5, she had four men under her command. Gilman, the only female in her platoon and the only Asian American in her company, was explicitly told by these four men that they didn’t like taking orders from a woman. She says that she told the men that they would have to get used to it.

“I shut off my brain,” she said.

An avid reader and English major, Gilman read only two books over the course of the year she spent in Kuwait. She explained that there was some “anti-American, anti-occupation sentiment” towards the American troops and was reluctant to get into specifics about her time in Kuwait.

She did say that each soldier shared one common experience, they had to be there, and describes her time in Kuwait as neither good nor bad, but says that it is an experience that shapes who she is.

Gilman has had a hard time readjusting since she returned to the states in April of 2004. She described feeling disconnected from everyone, including her husband, after returning from Kuwait.

“You don’t feel like you fit in,” she said.

She added that many things that people complain about and consider important, she finds to be meaningless. She found comfort in drinking with other members of her battalion, claiming she felt as if they were the only people she could relate to.

Gilman spent a lot of time alone after coming home. After spending 12 months constantly surrounded by other people, this was hard for Gilman to handle. She struggled with leaving the house alone. The amount of free time she had after returning home was also difficult.

Slowly, Jessica’s disconnectedness subsided and she applied to UMass to finish her undergraduate studies.

“I’m much more serious now about doing well,” Gilman said. This is Gilman’s second semester at the University. She is currently in Germany, fulfilling a three-week work assignment. She says that her professors have been very understanding to her situation. She is completing 20.5 credits this semester.

“What I’ve learned from the military helped me realize what I want. I have to get it for myself.”