A 15-Year Reunion Amidst 11 Years of War

Posted on April 24, 2012 1 Comment

Jazz hands, yearbooks, and nametags, oh my.  Make way for the class of 1997.

My 15-Year High School Reunion

Spirit fingers waving, I attended my 15-year high school reunion this weekend with a small crowd of fellow classmates. We roamed the halls of the school — which sort of looks like Hogwarts, as you can see from this photo — catching up on everyone’s careers, families, and relationships, and reminiscing about our past lives as scholars, athletes, dreamers, and schemers. I went to a remarkable private school in Chicago, St. Ignatius College Prep, thanks to scholarships, loans, and work-study programs, and frankly, I still can’t believe I had the privilege of attending such an academically rigorous, spiritually caring, and well-credentialed, well-rounded school.

I’m simply in awe of my fellow classmates — one works in a high-profile White House position,  and loads more work in Washington, D.C.; several have doctorate degrees or are on their way to them, and at least one has a professorship at an Ivy League school. Others are writers, entrepreneurs, finance professionals, teachers, doctors, and lawyers. They are a humbling group to be around, and I feel proud to call them my peers.

As you might expect, the economy came up several times. Most of the folks who attended the reunion were happily employed, and eager to share news about their career, but most also mentioned friends or family affected by the recession. And since we were about 300 graduates short at this particular event, who knows how many more classmates are unemployed or underemployed at the moment.

Aside from the economy though, another facet of our reunion struck me. One of the graduates honored at our reunion was previously an infantry officer in the Army, having spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan before starting his civilian career.  Another graduate I spoke with enlisted in Navy years ago, and had completed four tours of duty in Iraq. The loss of one of my classmates who was was killed in the World Trade Center on September 11 was poignantly felt, too. A far away war, which has gone on for most of our working lives, was acutely present at this reunion in a way that I’ve never felt before. It got me thinking about how deep the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have affected each of us. I myself formerly did communications work as a civilian for the U.S. Army, and the experience changed the whole course of my career. I wonder how many other lives in my class have been touched by these hard years, how many losses have been felt.

For our class of 1997, who graduated from college in 2001, our working years have been filled with drawn-out wars and economic uncertainty. We graduated high school full of optimism, ready to go into the world and make a difference after four years of college. But almost immediately after getting to the working world, with freshly printed diplomas in hand, so much changed the instant we arrived. There has never been a “normal” for us since the day the towers fell, which for many of us was during the infancy of our first post-graduation internship.

I wonder what the rest of our careers hold for us. So much of what has defined success for this class has been surviving. Surviving rounds of mass layoffs, surviving the attacks, surviving recessions, surviving  tours of duty … surviving.  We feel lucky to have been the ones to survive it all. I hope that the next decade brings a little more stability and normalcy for the class of 97, and that we see more classmates, not only surviving but thriving, at our 25-year reunion.

Category: Career
   Tags: economy , recession

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