While college students must worry about homework, reading assignments, finding parking and getting to class on time, some ASU students do the same while their boyfriend is overseas in a danger zone. Public relations junior Christy Conrad has this extra worry.
“It kind of puts things in perspective,” she says. “When I’m running late on an assignment and I think I’m only going to get two hours of sleep tonight, I think, ‘Oh yeah, my boyfriend is probably not going to sleep at all tonight.’”
Conrad’s boyfriend of more than three years, lance corporal Jordan Palcisko, does reconnaissance for the Marine Corps in Iraq.
“He was having kind of a hard time,” she says. “He was in school but didn’t really like it. So instead of wasting time, he did something he needed to do.”
Palcisko enlisted in February 2007. He and Conrad had been dating since mid 2005.
Conrad says she and Palcisko are living in two completely different worlds, but despite that, they try to make sure they still grow together.
“He’s literally on the other side of the world from me right now,” she says. “He’s my best friend.”
Conrad says she constantly checks her e-mail and social networking sites for messages from Palcisko. With the help of her Blackberry, Conrad and Palcisko also set up Web cams and talk on the phone from a phone booth at his base.
Conrad says the separation is the most difficult when she’s out with friends, most of which have a boyfriend or girlfriend in tow.
“It makes me feel like a third wheel,” Conrad says. “That’s when it’s hardest.”
ASU student Kristina Oniszko can relate.
Oniszko, a BIS senior, is also an army girlfriend — her boyfriend of more than three years is Private First Class Adam Simte, a medic in Iraq.
Simte enlisted in July 2007. Simte and Oniszko’s relationship has been long distance for the entire length of the relationship. Simte has either been gone or Oniszko has been studying abroad.
“It is really hard, especially when I have all these major events happening in my life and I can’t share them with him,” Oniszko says. “I have a friend who makes fun of me because I study a lot, and I always say I would love to just have the chance to study with Adam and to share all my college experience.”
Simte is in the sixth month of a 15-month deployment in Iraq. Oniszko says the long distance relationship is hard because the phones are always down and the internet connection is less than excellent.
“Most people get to see their significant others ever day and I don’t,” Oniszko says. “I knew when he signed up it also meant I was signing up as his support back home.”
Oniszko says she is always afraid.
“When he first went over, I had dreams of people knocking on the door to come and tell me the bad news,” she says.
Oniszko says if she could say anything to him, it would be to stay strong.
“You truly are my hero,” she says she would say to him. “Do everything in your power to come home to the people who love you.”
Not all relationships between members of the military and civilians wind up in long distance relationships.
Business management senior Margot MacKenzie used to have a relationship with an army infantryman who is currently in Afghanistan.
They were together for a year before he left. He enlisted in June 2007 and was deployed during the summer of 2008.
“We broke up for several reasons, one being we both agreed that trying to stay together while he was deployed was just too hard,” MacKenzie says. She says although they broke up before he left, she wrote him every day while he was in basic training.
Although attending ASU, MacKenzie still takes the time to pay attention on the infantryman’s behalf.
“Every time I see a news story about an explosion or soldier death in Afghanistan, I send him an e-mail asking that he tell me he is all right,” she says.
MacKenzie says the other reason things ended before he left is because she grew up watching her mom raise her and her siblings while her father was deployed for months at a time.
“It was something I just did not want for my life,” she says. “I still support him and his career in the army, just not in the capacity as his girlfriend.”
MacKenzie says her new boyfriend is not in the military and is not considering joining.
Other ASU students have friends and family in the services and many students have even enlisted themselves. However, conducting a relationship between e-mails, social networking and crackling phone calls can be as hard as keeping grades.
Reach the reporter at lauren.cusimano@asu.edu.
