By Stephanie Vosk

For former high school quarterback Kevin Mellen, leaving Northeastern in the middle of his sophomore year for a temporary home across the globe was his only choice.

Just a few weeks into the winter quarter, Mellen, who had completed his Marine Corps Reserves training last April, was sent to Kuwait along with thousands of other Americans in preparation for war with Iraq.

“He said that he was going to sign up for the reserves and I begged him, no, don’t do it,” said Mellen’s mother, Darlene Johnson. “Then 9/11 came and that was it, there was no talking him out of it at that point.”

Mellen, a mechanical engineering major who attended Assabet Valley Regional Vocational High School in Marlboro, is currently part of a support unit attached to the Engineering Bridge Company overseas.

While Johnson has not heard from her son since February 28, she does not believe that he is fighting on the front lines.

“He told us that he was okay, that he’s been repositioned,” she said of the last time she spoke with her son. “He can’t tell us where he’s going, but that he’s got an important job and it’s basically pretty safe.”

For three weeks, Johnson received weekly five minute phone calls from Mellen, but the phone calls have stopped for security purposes.

Soldiers overseas are not exposed to the media coverage here in the United States. In his last letter home, Mellen asked his mother how the country was reacting to the prospect of the war. Johnson did not want to upset Mellen by letting him know about the frequent protests and the growing opposition to the cause for which he was fighting.

“I just wrote him back and told him that America supports him, that he’s doing a good thing,” Johnson said.

In his letter, he also wrote that “he can’t wait to get home and start his normal life and get back to school,” Johnson said. “He said he was sick of eating sand.”

While Johnson is extremely proud of her son and what he is doing, she cannot wait for him to come home.

“I support him all the way. I believe in what he believes in, that he’s doing a good thing,” she said. “But you don’t know when the phone’s going to ring, you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

In the last letter that Johnson received before the war began, Mellen told her that he was not scared.

Mellen wrote to his mother that, “He’s gone to do his job and he’s going to get his job done, and he’ll be home.”