Joseph D’Agnese / On Earth Magazine / May 27, 2010

JONATHAN GENSLER :: RANK: Captain, U.S. Army; AGE: 32; HOMETOWN: Huntington, West Virginia; THEN: Tank and mortar platoon leader, Kuwait and Iraq; NOW: Graduate student in business at MIT and government at Harvard; plans to start a clean-energy business; GENSLER SAYS: “I buried a fellow West Virginian who was killed when his Humvee was struck by an IED that was probably financed by Iran. In my mind, he was killed by a regime propped up by our oil demands.”

We sent them into battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. What they saw there has sparked their next mission — to end our dependence on fossil fuels.

Ten years ago, Robin Eckstein was a college student in Appleton, Wisconsin, struggling to pay her bills with bartending and waitressing jobs. Her credit card debt was mounting. Out of the blue, a National Guard recruiter e-mailed her, offering a free college education in exchange for her military service. She enlisted, and reported for active duty in October 2000. Three years later, she was driving supply trucks across the Iraqi desert.

Read more here

Comments (0) · Leave a Comment