When President Bush gave Saddam Hussein a 48-hour ultimatum to
leave Iraq in March 2003, Jasaun Neff faced one of the toughest
decisions of his life.
Neff, a 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran who left active duty in
2000, was torn between the duty to serve his country and the
feeling that a war in Iraq was unjust.
A man of steadfast principles and a solid sense of honor, he was
challenged by an assault on his most fundamental beliefs. Coming
from a large family and a poor background, Neff had worked hard his
whole life with the goal of attending college. But a detour through
the army left him to confront difficulties most college students
will never face.
The now-UCLA history student was ready to return to active duty
after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but he was not full
of blind patriotism. When the war on terrorism shifted from
Afghanistan to Iraq, Neff thought to himself, “Not a single
one of the hijackers was Iraqi, and this is looking like a
premeditated war.”
But at the same time, he said, Hussein was undeniably evil.
His “internal struggles” were heightened when his
best friend from the army ““ someone he was as close to as any
of his five brothers ““ was compelled back into active duty
and sent to Iraq.
“If he’s going, maybe I should go, too because I
promised I’d always have his back,” Neff thought at the
time.
With the conflicts he faced, Neff had frequent nightmares about
whether he should go to Iraq.
“If I don’t go,” he remembers thinking,
“somebody’s dad is going to war in my place,
somebody’s mom is going to war in my place.”
He felt guilty for not going because so many others were going
to Iraq and so many others were dying there.
With the growing fear that he would be called back into active
duty, Neff, after some serious soul-searching, decided he would
apply for conscientious objector status ““ a formal expression
of opposition to war.
The application process requires a written portion and as many
as three interviews, which can be difficult, said Steve Morse, GI
rights program coordinator for the Central Committee for
Conscientious Objectors.
“They don’t make this process easy ““ sometimes
they lose (the application), they certainly harass soldiers
sometimes,” Morse said.
The process for Neff was grueling.
But his aversion to the war would take on a whole new character
after July 2004, when he watched Michael Moore’s
“Fahrenheit 9/11.” Hearing soldiers in the movie say
many of the things he had been thinking about the war upset him so
deeply he had to turn off the movie.
His anger was boiling over, and he couldn’t sleep that
night.
“I realized I’m never going to sleep if I
don’t let this out somewhere,” he said. “So I
started writing.”
He took what he wrote, condensed it and sent it to Moore to
thank him for giving a voice to soldiers against the war. He
didn’t think anything would come of it, but he found out
several weeks later that his letter would be printed in
Moore’s next book.
Neff’s mother, Diana Seagram, was nervous about her son
appearing in his book because she was afraid some of the anti-Moore
sentiment would transfer to her son. But when Neff told her his
first name had been misspelled as “Jasuan” in the book,
she joked that she could deny it was her son in the book.
Last month, Neff got a call while in class from Moore’s
representatives asking if he would speak with Moore when he
appeared that same night at the University of Southern California,
to which he replied, “Hell no.”
“I didn’t sign up to do any public speaking,”
he said. “The last time I spoke in front of any kind of crowd
was when I ran for class president in sixth grade ““ and I
lost.”
But he thought about it throughout the day and realized that he
had never backed down from anything in his life, so he
couldn’t now. Neff called back and accepted the invitation
two hours before he was to speak.
Though his nerves ran high, Neff saw this opportunity as another
in a string of obstacles to overcome that have characterized his
life. His internal and external conflicts left him at times reeling
under the pressure, but a solid sense of honor has kept his
character constant.
A path to college
Neff knew from an early age he wanted to go college but he had
no idea how that was going to happen.
“I didn’t know how to go to college, I didn’t
know who to ask, I had never taken the SATs,” he said.
Growing up a “poor kid” in San Diego, Neff and his
family had worked hard their entire lives ““ from cleaning
toilets while in elementary school to watching his dad work 17-hour
days at a shipyard, Neff knew hard work.
In 1996, as the second oldest of seven children (now nine), Neff
was the self-described man of the house, often cooking meals for
his brothers and sisters. His responsibilities to his family
trumped the demands of school at the time.
So his high school grades weren’t too impressive, he said
modestly.
What he neglected to mention, though, was that he had skipped a
grade in elementary school, finished high school early and had
less-than-stellar grades because high school was too easy, said his
father, Tim Neff.
“He kind of got bored with school. He felt like everything
came to him too easy,” Tim said. “Ever since he was in
elementary school, he let me know he was a little bit more
intelligent than I was,” Tim said with a hearty laugh.
But to go to college, Jasaun had to look beyond mere potential
to something tangible, something that could pay his way ““ and
there, waiting with open arms, was the army.
About a month after he graduated, the army called up a hesitant
Neff.
“I told the army, “˜I do want to go to college, and I
like that you can give me money to go to college but I don’t
know if I’m willing to commit my life to the
army,'” he said. But the army persisted and Neff
enlisted in 1996 ““ only 17 years old.
Students in low-income neighborhoods across the country
increasingly find themselves in Neff’s situation ““
wishing to go to college but lacking the money.
Today, legislation ““ including the No Child Left Behind
Act ““ has allowed increased access for army recruiters to
high school student records and funding for army recruiters to
target low-income communities. There has been some outcry from
community members, but the army maintains that its role is
benevolent, as it provides a college education for many students
who otherwise could not afford it.
Neff entered the army to get to college, but had no idea about
the conflicts he would face as a result.
Life in the armed forces
Until he enlisted, Neff had flown on a plane once in his life.
In eighth grade, he led his school team to a national science
competition called Science Olympia, in Indianapolis, Ind.
immediately after a plane had crashed on the same runway.
“We circled around this crash site,” Neff said.
“And I remember thinking, “˜Man, I am never flying again
in my life.'”
But he had enlisted in the army, and he did fly to South
Carolina, where he began basic training, which, he said, was
actually fun.
Throughout his life, Neff always took everything in stride.
While basic training is grueling for many ““ there were two
suicide attempts by other soldiers while Neff was there ““ he
barely took notice of the burdens.
“I was young, and running through the woods with a gun was
kind of fun,” he admitted. “It was sort of like playing
GI Joe.”
“I don’t think I realized the gravity of the
commitment I made until I made it to my first duty session”
““ that is, until he realized his decision to enlist in the
army may turn out to be a decision of life or death, literally.
During a field exercise, a group of soldiers was to check out a
suspected chemically contaminated site and Neff, as the
lowest-ranking officer, was to be the first to remove his gas
mask.
“I remember thinking if we went to war today, I would be
the canary,” he said. “My life is more or less a piece
of litmus paper.”
And more than once, Neff would see his life pass before his own
eyes, or, in a sense, by his ear.
After learning to shoot M-16 rifles one day, Neff and his fellow
soldiers were checking the weapons back in. They were marching in
line, each soldier with a gun on his shoulder, when the M-16 in
front of Neff went off. As bullets whizzed past his head, Neff
thought to himself, “This is not shooting cans with BB guns.
This is real.”
Neff began to realize the new world he had become a part of was
not like the one he had known.
“When you wear this,” he said, tugging at the lapel
of his camouflage army jacket, “it’s a different
country ““ things are done differently.”
“Societal norms,” he said, “they don’t
necessarily carry over.”
Neff was promoted to sergeant at the unusually young age of 20
while stationed in Tongduchon, in the Korean province of
Kyonggi.
In basic training, Neff and many other trainees were told they
would be sent to Bosnia. Though Neff was not sent to a battle zone,
Korea proved hostile territory at times.
“A lot of people didn’t realize that in Korea, where
he was at, was a real hotbed for conflict,” said his dad Tim.
“I was very, very concerned for him.”
The dangers he faced were not necessarily human, though.
One day, Sgt. Jasaun Neff of the 2nd infantry division of the
122nd signal battalion was wading through knee-deep mud when he
happened upon a land mine. He gathered his troops around to teach
them how to disarm the mine, when one soldier, thinking the mine
was fake, slapped the mine with his hand.
“My life flashed in front of my eyes,” he said.
“I just froze.” Neff thought he was going to die.
But nothing happened.
The mine wasn’t live, but none of the soldiers knew it at
the time.
Neff still doesn’t know why his fellow soldier did it, but
he said there was a sense among some that being in the army was all
a big game. Indeed, that soldier wasn’t the only innocent and
naive person there, he said.
The first time it snowed when they were in Korea, Neff and the
other soldiers played in snow like children.
“We’ve got M-16s on our shoulders but we’re
running around and laughing,” he said.
Neff was afforded the occasional surreal or sublime excursions
from the hardships of serving in the military, but his experience
in the army was trying.
“Even though he didn’t go to war, he went through a
very difficult time,” said his mother, Seagram.
After four years in the army, Neff left active duty in 2000.
Despite climbing the ranks in the armed forces and knowing he could
have had a successful career there, the lure of college was
growing.
A high achiever
“The same way that the army was sort of foreign to me when
I first joined, (being) back in the real world was extremely
foreign,” Neff said.
Being in the military was hard, as was returning to civilian
life, but Neff and those who know him are certain he is a better
person for having served. The lessons he learned, the confidence he
developed, and the conviction he maintained have shaped who he is
today.
And even with the difficulties of readjusting to civilian life,
Neff was ready to go to college.
“I knew as soon as I got to college I would do as well as
anyone else,” he said.
And by and by he began to acclimate himself.
He had not owned a computer until was out of the army. Now he
fixes computers for UCLA External Affairs.
Neff’s life is a story of repeated hardships and repeated
successes.
He learned how to use the Internet when he was 19.
When a close friend and several family members died and he had
no leave available to go to their funerals, Neff learned how to
search the Internet for their obituaries.
“Somebody showed me how to use Yahoo.com to find the San
Diego paper’s Web site,” he said.
“After a while I realized if I could find my local
newspaper from here,” he thought, “I’m sure I
could find a whole lot of other things. So I started playing with
the Internet. That was like the genesis of my computer
knowledge.”
Now he works in technical support.
Neff enrolled in Cuyamaca College in El Cajon, Calif. in
2001.
A 4.0 student, Neff was one of three students statewide to win
the Jonnah LaRoche Memorial Scholarship from the Academic Senate
for California Community Colleges.
When he wanted to transfer to a university, he looked to his
childhood to help him decide where to apply.
He was a long-time fan of college football and in fact, when he
was a child, football was the only thing he knew about college. So,
as he grew up, his affinity for UCLA ““ from the games he had
watched when he was younger ““ remained intact.
With the life experience he already has, college has proven a
different experience for Neff than it has for many other
students.
When Neff resolved to speak with Moore at USC, he faced a fear
more imposing than midterms. And while his post-army experiences
have generally not been life-threatening, they have made him a
stronger person.
Once he has overcome a challenge, he says “I’ve been
through this, so whatever happens next, I can get through that,
too.”