When Jenna Grassbaugh, a 2006 Hopkins graduate, speaks about her husband Jonathan, she remembers the future that Grassbaugh had envisioned for them after he returned from his second tour in Iraq, where he served as an army captain in the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division.
Grassbaugh, who graduated with a degree in computer science from the Whiting School of Engineering in 2003, dreamt of going into the career corps and pursuing a career in the civil service, undertaking missions that would allow him to interact with foreign officials.
"I think he would've been good at that," Ms. Grassbaugh said. "He was great with people and communication, and getting his message across."
But before he got the chance, Grassbaugh, 26, was killed during a patrol with his unit in Zaganiyah, Iraq, on April 7. At the time, he and Ms. Grassbaugh had been married just 10 months, after a four-year romance that began during her freshman year at Hopkins.
Last Friday, the Hopkins ROTC held a memorial on campus to commemorate Grassbaugh's life and celebrate his service. Friends, family and instructors remembered the bright, energetic student as a born leader — someone who, as his friend and classmate Evan Perperis said, didn't hesitate to speak up for what he thought was right.
"During our freshman year, one of the cadets at the time ... didn't get a medal at the ROTC awards banquet," Perperis said at the memorial service. "Jon, seeing a great injustice, marched into Ltc. Roller's room to tell him he was wrong."
Grassbaugh's guts stunned Perperis. "An ROTC cadet of two years was telling an officer of 18 years that this was wrong, and he needed to do something about it."
The senior officer at the receiving end of Grassbaugh's talk was Ltc. Charles Roller, a now-retired officer who was professor of military science at Hopkins until 2005. He, too, was impressed by Grassbaugh's apparent courage and conviction. Speaking to the JHU Gazette, Roller said, "In my nine years teaching ROTC — three at Duke and six at JHU — Jonathan Grassbaugh was by far one of the most energetic and conscientious young men that I had the honor to teach."
At Hopkins, Grassbaugh excelled in his ROTC training, showing the willingness to serve instilled by his father, who served in the Army, and shared by his brother, who now works as a surgeon at Fort Lewis, Wash.
In his senior year, Grassbaugh was selected as the commander of his cadet battalion and was active in the Pershing Rifles, a national military fraternity. He threw himself into every ROTC activity, and led the JHU Ranger Challenge team to victory in brigade competitions two years in a row.
Once he entered active service and was deployed to Iraq last summer, Grassbaugh continued to thrive. He was known for his compassionate leadership — one commander's story recalled how had he flown Pizza Hut pizza from 100 kilometers away to his troops — and for his courage, winning the Bronze Star.
But in addition to his discipline and skill, Grassbaugh's lighthearted enthusiasm for life and his capacity for spontaneity inspired his friends to share a wealth of fond memories during his memorial. A member of the Hopkins class of 2004, fellow ROTC cadet Rimas Radzius recollected a party during which Grassbaugh, bored and looking for distraction, decided on a whim to drive to Montreal. "He had a carefree, live-life attitude," Radzius said.
Perhaps the most poignant tribute friends and instructors gave Grassbaugh lay in their refusal to speak of his life — lost while fighting for the country he loved — in terms of tragedy.
"People dying in 9/11 is a tragedy. Thirty-three kids getting gunned down in their school is a tragedy," Perperis said. "John sacrificing his life for his country is not."
A circle of support during difficult times
The memorial at Hopkins was marked by the presence of several families with relatives serving in the Iraq war, exhibiting a unified show of support that Ms. Grassbaugh said she found comforting. "I know people are doing their best to look out for me," she said.
One of those present was Ann Woodward, a visual resources curator at Hopkins. Woodward's son Andrew had been Grassbaugh's friend and roommate at Hopkins, and is currently serving on a tour of combat duty in Baghdad.
"[Grassbaugh] was incredibly energetic and well-organized," Woodward said. "One of the jobs he had for his battalion was that when they were deployed, he as a logistics officer was in charge of procuring and making sure that they had everything that they needed to take with them, ranging from tanks to toilet paper."
Woodward expressed the difficulties of being a parent with a child in the war. Because of communication difficulties, she is only able to speak with her son infrequently. "First, most of the support that's available from the army is aimed at soldiers' spouses," Woodward said. "There isn't anything really geared to parents from the army."
But she said that the Hopkins community has been supportive: "I would say that people are personally sympathetic."
Paula Burger, Dean of Undergraduate Education and vice provost, was one of many administrators who paid tribute to Grassbaugh at his memorial, and said that the support of families is one of the strongest attributes of the ROTC community.
"The extended family bands together to show support during these tragic times," Burger said. Grassbaugh's loss, she added, had unfortunately brought the war home to Hopkins.
A different perspective
Grassbaugh's death — one of the nearly 3,300 casualties the U.S. military has incurred in the Iraq conflict — marks the first Hopkins graduate to perish in the war. For current ROTC cadets, many of whom will be called to serve once they graduate, their personal proximity to the war has lent them a different perspective than most other students have.
"I do feel the war is closer to me," said junior Meagan McClellan, whose father also did a tour of duty in Iraq in 2003. "We don't see it as more of a reality than anyone else. But we're trained to imagine ourselves in battle, and to react and take charge and succeed in those situations."
She added that, although she's not happy about the fighting, she has accepted service as her responsibility. "I'm not apprehensive — I just know that, if we're still in combat by the time I'm deemed ready for combat, I'm going to be put into a combat situation."
ROTC cadet Andria Caruso, a senior, said that she admired Grassbaugh for his honorable deeds — "he went and did his duty, and he's a hero." Headed to medical school next year to prepare for a career in combat-zone medicine, Caruso added, "None of us want to go there to kill people. As a doctor, I want to prevent this kind of heartache that happens when people get hurt."
The cadets will soon celebrate the completion of another grueling year in the ROTC at the annual awards ceremony this coming weekend, where a vacated table with a lit candle will provide a sure and somber reminder of Grassbaugh and the thousands of other soldiers who died in Iraq.
For Ms. Grassbaugh, the loss of her husband has left her future uncertain. Like him, she had graduated from the Hopkins ROTC with a commitment to serve in the military, but had postponed active duty to go to law school at the College of William & Mary. Mourning his loss, she is now considering what will come next.
"He lived by the motto 'Not for oneself.' Everything he did and everything that he aspired to was never self-promoting. It was about doing the right thing, and doing what was going to help to better other people," she said. "I just want to make him proud."
— Marie Cushing and Max McKenna contributed to this article.
