After serving his year tour in Kuwait, John Jaramillo has returned to Bakersfield College to continue serving his duty as Delano campus director.
Jaramillo departed for Kuwait in May 2005. He returned to his campus director position on Aug. 24. Currently, he is trying to transition back into the campus.
“There are a lot of new faculty, new employees and I am learning that it is hard to run one center in two different locations,” Jaramillo said.
His current mission is to continue working on the Delano campus project. Jaramillo had been working on this particular project for five years before his deployment. Presently, one of the center’s buildings has been opened and Jaramillo says that the second building should be open by the fall of 2008.
Jaramillo’s initial mission in Kuwait was completed. The mission included turning various tasks over to private contractors. “Our mission changed a lot. It was not exactly what some people thought it would be,” he said.
His duties included checking up on other soldiers during missions. Eventually, Jaramillo became the commander of the headquarters company, which included being responsible for 126 soldiers.
Jaramillo did spend some time in Iraq, the longest being a week. “Most of my trips were up and back, so I like to joke around and say that I was more of a tourist in Iraq,” said Jaramillo.
While in Kuwait, Jaramillo also communicated to fellow colleagues that some soldiers had access to DVD players, but had no DVD discs. As a result, Karen Sallee, BC administrative assistant, and Kathleen Loomis-Tubbesing, BC coordinator for Distance Learning, coordinated a campus-wide DVD drive. Approximately over 200 DVDs, and cash contributions were collected and sent to Kuwait.
Jaramillo said the DVDs helped pass the time in the evenings. He pretty much ran a DVD store where soldiers could check the movies in and out. “I left the DVD collections with soldiers stationed at borders near Syria and some others,” said Jaramillo.
Jaramillo said he is very grateful for the DVDs collected. He also said that he is so thankful that he will be giving the people who oversaw the DVD donations army commander coins. Army commander coins are customarily given in recognition of excellence.
Jaramillo will remain assigned to Unit 115 ASG (Area Support Group) based out of the Sacramento-Roseville area and will begin doing drills in November.