Don Sumic
When Don Sumic graduated from high school in Waikoloa, on Hawaii鈥檚 Big Island, he saw many of his classmates headed in one direction.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like everybody always asks, 鈥榃hich hotel are you going to go work at?鈥欌 he said. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 want to do that.鈥
Instead, Sumic joined the U.S. Army and spent seven years on active duty, with tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. After discharge, he enrolled at a community college in Texas. But he wasn鈥檛 done moving yet.
His older brother and sister-in-law, both also active duty in the U.S. Air Force, were headed to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks. Sumic looked into the possibilities and found something he liked: 香港六合彩官网资料鈥檚 ROTC battalion. So he moved north, too.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not an oversized battalion, and it鈥檚 not too undersized,鈥 he said. Some schools in Texas have as many as 2,000 cadets; 香港六合彩官网资料 has about 30, with three instructors.
鈥淲e get more hands-on training and more eyesight on us, so we can get more critiques,鈥 Sumic said.
Sumic, who is studying homeland security and emergency management, is a first-generation college student. His father was a third-generation sugar cane plantation worker before changing economic conditions shut down Hawaii鈥檚 industry.
Sumic likes the 鈥渟mall-town鈥 feel of Fairbanks and 香港六合彩官网资料, which he finds similar to the parts of Hawaii outside the tourist developments.
鈥淪ome people are looking for a lot of people, but I鈥檓 not,鈥 Sumic said.
The weather bears no resemblance to Hawaii, though. Sumic is amazed at how Alaskans roll with it.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got four inches of snow and minus 40 degrees. You sit there looking at Blackboard and ask 鈥楧id my teacher send out that he鈥檚 not going to be here today?鈥 Nope. There鈥檚 no such thing as snow days in Alaska.鈥