By Answering His Country's Call, UC Student Delayed Completing College

Lives all around the world changed, in ways small and large, after the fall of New York’s Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001.  One of those lives so changed was that of UC mechanical engineering technology (MET) senior Eric Randall, 28, of Hyde Park.

At the time of the terrorist attack, Randall, also a staff sergeant in the Ohio Air National Guard, had been preparing to complete his senior year in UC’s College of Applied Science.  Recalled Randall, “I was in school the fall quarter of 2001, in the midst of my senior year project, when they said that they were going to deploy me.”

Soon, Randall went from Ohio to half way round the world, to Turkey.  It was a year before he returned to “normal” life as a UC senior after coming home to Ohio with his Turkish bride, Emine.

When he was first began active duty early in 2002, Randall worked at Rickenbacker Air Force Base in Columbus where he maintained KC-135 refueling tankers used as “gas stations in the sky for refueling fighters,” according to Randall.  Then, in March 2002, Randall was sent to Incirlik air base in Turkey as part of Operation Northern Watch.  He remained in Turkey for the next five months.

Randall describes life there:  “The Air Force was doing border patrols and security overflights of Iraq.  I prepped the planes for flight, did the ‘walk around’ with the pilot before the flight, debriefed the air crew when they came back and fixed any problems they mentioned.  You worked as long as it took, 15 hours if that’s what it took.”

When off duty, Randall slept on a cot in a large tent with four other servicemen.  He laughs when people are impressed that he lived in a tent for five months.  “Northern Watch had begun 10 years ago so the accommodations had been there a long time and were pretty nice.  The tent had a kitchen section with a fridge.  And while it was really hot, it was an air-conditioned tent and that helped.  We even had satellite TV,” he explained.

The “tent city” consisted of hundreds of tents housing U.S. forces and a small village has sprung up nearby to cater to the “military market.”  At a restaurant where he ate every day, Randall met his future wife, Emine, 32.

“She had a full-time job in the nearby city of Adana, but she also worked in the restaurant.  It gave her a chance to practice her English,” Randall recalled.  Two weeks after the two began talking, they were dating, and by the time Randall returned to the United States in July 2002, the couple was engaged.  Later, Randall returned to Turkey, and they were married last December.  Then came the whirlwind, Randall recalled.  He said, “We got back here a few days before I restarted my senior year (early January of 2003).  We came here, and she met my family in Piqua.  We had to find an apartment.  I found a job in a restaurant, and she found one doing data entry.  That’s on top of restarting school and finishing my senior project.”

These months before graduation are challenging for both Eric and Emine.  For instance, though conversant in English, Emine is not yet fluent.  She said, “I studied ‘British’ English, and I’m not used to the accents here.  I usually understand what people tell me, but I have an accent too.  Some people have trouble understanding me.  But,” she added, “Eric understands me easily, and I can understand him.”  Certainly, the most important thing. 

In addition to adjusting to an entirely new culture, this is also Emine’s first time living away from her family.  “I’m really homesick right now.  It’s hard.  It’s the same how I felt when Eric had to leave Turkey (during the fall of 2002).  I missed Eric like I miss my family now,” she said.

But both believe strongly that they’ll overcome these challenges and are looking forward to their life together in the United States.  Said Eric, “Emine is brave to come to a new country and culture.  I’m proud of her.  I’m proud and honored to have served my country, and she’s obviously the best thing that came from that.  Of course, when I was called up, there was uncertainty, and I had to put aside my agenda of finishing school at that time, and I had lots of nerves over it all.  But, I would serve my country again.  I would do it all again.”