Air Force Vets 'Enlist' at Penn

For from their bases, three Air Force officers are getting an education of a different sort. and Erin Reilly On a recent Thursday morning, Maj. Don Zimmerman took a seat in the second-floor Kelly Writers House seminar room and extracted a ballpoint pen and a thick bulkpack from his book bag. Wearing a red-and-green flannel shirt, jeans and thin-rimmed glasses, he looked more like a typical Penn student than an officer in the U.S. Air Force. "We're not required to wear our uniform on a regular basis to class," said Zimmerman, 35, a second-year English graduate student who was arriving at a class on British literature of the 18th and early-19th centuries. Though their clothing might not give them away, Zimmerman and fellow Air Force officers Maj. John Terino and Capt. David Bush are on duty in University City -- on duty to learn, that is. In each case, the federal government is footing the bill for their education or research, as it commonly does for military officers: Zimmerman is pursuing a doctorate in English; Terino a doctorate in History and Sociology of Science. Bush, a pediatrician, is on a fellowship doing clinical and research work at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Zimmerman and Terino, 34, did not know each other personally before coming to the University, though they were familiar with each other's backgrounds because one taught literature and the other history at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. Bush, 29, came to Philadelphia in July fresh from a three-year residency at a base near San Francisco. All three hope the knowledge and experience they gain in the City of Brotherly Love will benefit military personnel across the country -- from cadets at the academy to the chief of staff at the Pentagon to the families of Air Force servicemen at bases with major medical centers. The Shakespeare Nut Though his official task is to earn a degree, and his education is being fully funded by the Air Force Institute of Technology, Zimmerman says his real mission is to open Academy cadets' minds to the world outside air combat. Zimmerman, who is on his fourth military-funded degree and will return to the academy as an assistant professor in its English department, said the typical cadet enters the school thinking, "I'm going to be a fighter pilot. What does Shakespeare have to do with me? I know I am going to fly an F-16." Zimmerman commended Penn's English professors for their ability to use the Internet to aid in the teaching of literature. He will try to bring chat sessions and Web pages with direct links to literary resources to academy classrooms. The major was initially unsure that the government would be willing to fund his education at an expensive private university, and first looked at a number of public universities with respectable English departments. Thus, he was surprised when his supervisor, Academy English department head Col. Jack Shuttleworth, suggested Penn. "If we are spending taxpayers' money to prepare future faculty members, we want to make sure they get the best education possible," Shuttleworth said. He said Zimmerman was uniquely qualified to obtain such a pricey degree. "In the changing technological world, we need someone who is humanely educated as well as technologically efficient," he said. "[Zimmerman] unifies both of these." And he unifies both of something else: Zimmerman has had experience in both the academic and combat spheres of the military. In fact, he faced the decision of his life nearly eight years ago with the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War. As an Air Force pilot, his commander offered him the chance to fly in Desert Storm. His wife, Gail, was 3 1/2 months pregnant at the time with their first child, Marshall, and a week earlier her doctor told her she no longer had to stay in bed. "In no sense did I want to go all the way around the world," Zimmerman said. Evaluating his options, he came to the conclusion that since his wife had a church and military-family support-group and her pregnancy was no longer in a dangerous stage, he should take the mission. Zimmerman ultimately joined his crew at Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean. But 12 hours before his first scheduled combat mission, the war was over. These days, Zimmerman's family and mission are grounded in Colorado. When Zimmerman -- who is in an accelerated three-year program in which he must finish his dissertation by May 2000 -- returns to the academy classrooms, he hopes the move will be his last. The History Buff Terino, a third-year graduate student in the History and Sociology of Science Department, also has the military to thank for his repeated, free-of-charge visits to universities. The Reserve Officers' Training Corps program provided the financial assistance Terino, now 34, needed to attend Penn as an undergraduate, earning his bachelor's degree in HSS in 1986. The Air Force Academy was looking for a teacher and returned him for his master's degree in HSS, which he received in 1991. Now he is back to finish what he started and earn a doctorate in the subject. Upon completion of his degree, the Pentagon will employ Terino as the historian for its chief of staff. As for the future beyond Penn and the Pentagon, Terino hopes to return in four or five years to the academy as a professor. He, like Zimmerman, is on a time constraint. "I turn into a pumpkin in September of '99," Terino said, explaining that his funding does not extend past that date, forcing him to write his dissertation faster than normal graduate students. Penn has already shaped Terino's life in more than just the educational sense. He met his wife Susan, a 1986 College alumna, as an undergraduate. Another thing: Terino is "a real nut when it comes to Penn football," said Zimmerman, who has attended several recent games with Terino. In addition, because of his long-time affiliation with the school, Terino has established "a great rapport" over the years with professors in the HSS department. And Terino echoed Shuttleworth's feelings about why officials chose Penn as opposed to other institutions for Air Force officer education. "If you want to be the best, you have to associate with the best," he said. The Children's Doc Bush will also return to the Air Force, but not as a professor. When he finishes his clinical and research work at CHOP in three years, he will care for the children of servicemen and servicewomen at one of the Air Force's four bases with major medical centers, in California, Texas, Ohio or Mississippi. "If I'm taking care of their kids," Bush said, "then I'm contributing to their peace of mind and allowing them to do their jobs better." As a military doctor, Bush is guided not only by the oath of the medical profession but by the stated credo of the Air Force. "Everything we all do is to support the mission," he said of himself and his fellow military men in University City. "And the mission is to defend and protect the constitution of the United States and the country." This sense of duty that he feels toward his country was one of the factors that propelled him into military service as he fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming a doctor. It was the Air Force Academy that put him through five years of medical school at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He graduated in 1995 with a medical degree, a doctorate in Clinical Epidemiology, and the rank of captain. Bush then served his three-year residency in pediatrics at Travis Air Force Base, 45 minutes outside of San Francisco, and came to Philadelphia in July when he received funding from the Air Force for a fellowship in pediatric cardiology. At CHOP, Bush treats patients but will also pursue hospital-based research in the next few years before returning to a base. Somewhere in between caring for patients and conducting research, he still finds time to spend with his wife, Anneke, and their 19-month-old daughter Abigail in their Havertown, Pa., home. The couple is expecting another child in February. And despite the 36-hour shifts he puts in regularly, "I love what I do," Bush said. "We take children that may not have a chance for life, and give them a full life," he added. "Everything we do is to improve the chance of not only living, but living a full life and achieving the most that they can. It's rewarding to see that you've helped someone do that."