GETTYSBURG, Pa., August 16, 2005 - Unlike other first-year students entering Gettysburg College, Conor Quinn began his studies in January instead of August. He’s also age twenty-three, not eighteen.

But age and a late arrival aren’t what makes Quinn an unusual student. They’re just a couple of minor symptoms. What really sets him apart from others on campus is the fact he just completed four years in the Marines and two tours of duty in Iraq.

By his own admission, Quinn wasn’t ready for college after high school. His only direction was the vague feeling that he needed to do something to get himself together. “I thought the military was the thing, so I joined the Marines,” he said. That was in November 2000.

Following basic training, Quinn was assigned to the 2nd Battalion in the 2nd Marine Division, which shipped out to Kosovo in September 2002 and then to Djibouti in Africa. “We were only supposed to be overseas six months,” he said, “but in February 2003 we were still in Africa.” That month, when the battalion finally shipped out, Quinn and his fellow soldiers thought they were going home. Instead, they were sent to Iraq.

“We landed in Iraq and headed about 200 miles into the country,” Quinn said. “Because we had already been overseas so long and were worn out, they didn’t put us into the main effort. Our primary job was to secure routes so that the forces going to Baghdad could get in safely. We were in the defensive position for twenty-eight days. I slept outside in the ground and didn’t get a shower for twenty-eight days.”

Returning home for the first time in nine months, Quinn thought he wouldn’t be posted overseas again. But a half a year later, in January 2004, he was on his way back to Iraq. “That was a shock,” he said. But he understood, as many soldiers had been in Iraq for more than a year.

“The second time over there was a lot more serious than the first,” Quinn said. “It was seven months, not twenty-eight days.” He was stationed in Al-Muhmadiyah, about thirty-five miles south of Baghdad, and was also a part of the first Marine effort to clear Fallujah of insurgents. “I was a scout sniper,” he said. “Basically, you do surveillance and ‘target acquisition.’ I’m not sure what else I should say about that.”

During those seven months Quinn saw considerable action and came under fire on numerous occasions. His battalion lost six dead and more than 100 wounded. “There were a couple of times when I’d be sitting there in 120-degree weather and wondering, ‘Why did I do this?’ But, I’ve learned a lot myself, about life in general, about how to deal with people. If I hadn’t joined the Marine Corps, I’d probably be sitting at home trying to figure out what to do. It was definitely a good experience for me.”

In Iraq, Quinn distinguished himself in combat on numerous occasions, braving mortars and small-arms fire to provide needed observation and surveillance. For his actions he was cited for “heroic achievement” and awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with combat distinguishing device.

Quinn’s four years in the Marines ended in November 2004, and two months later he enrolled as a first-year student at Gettysburg College. It was something he had been looking forward to for several years. “I pretty much knew I wanted to go to college after about a year in the Marine Corps,” he said. He also knew then that it would be Gettysburg.

After his first year in the Marines, Quinn had returned home to visit his parents in Rockville, Md. “My dad said, ‘Let’s go up to Gettysburg and check out the battlefield,” he recalled. “I said, ‘O.K., fine.’ We get there and are walking around the battlefields, and he says, ‘Let’s go check out the campus.’ And I’m looking around, like, what campus? We’re in the middle of a field and there’s a little town over there. Then we just went on campus, and it’s so beautiful. The stadium was something else that caught my eye. That’s pretty much how I knew I wanted to come here.”

The transition from marine to student has not been difficult for Quinn. “There were definitely adjustments, but I guess it’s not as hard as I thought it would be,” he said. “I get up in the morning and do what I have to do. I hear some students complain, ‘I have to get up at 8:00 to get to an 8:30 class,’ and I wonder what the problem is. I take the discipline I learned in the military and transfer it over. I’ve accomplished four years of something that feels great, and this is something else that I just look forward to every day. Getting back into learning has been amazing, you know, getting my brain working again.”

Quinn has not decided on a major yet, but says that he is leaning toward history. “I’m also taking an anthropology course that is real interesting, so probably history or anthropology,” he said. As for career goals: “I think that graduate school would be something in the future,” he said. “I’d like a job where I can travel a lot. I’m planning on minoring in Spanish. A job where I could travel would be great. something that is interesting and something that I enjoy doing.”

In addition to academics, Quinn is also participating in two varsity sports at the College. This spring he joined the lacrosse team, a game he first played in fourth grade. In the fall he plans to try out for football, which he started in fifth grade. “I always had an equal love for both football and lacrosse,” he said. “Being a part of something again was great. My first couple of weeks out on the lacrosse field, I was like a giddy kid with this lacrosse stick in my hand.”

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Gettysburg College is a highly selective four-year residential college of liberal arts and sciences. It is located on a 200-acre campus adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. The college was founded in 1832.