By Adam R. Cole ('03)

Adam Cole

My world is much different these days than it was when I spent four very learning-intensive years at the University of Colorado. These days I take residence in the land of the rising sun – Japan. The view outside my window is no longer Boulder's endless Flatirons but Sasebo's endless waterfront and lush hills. And instead of sloppily throwing on a collared shirt and pants, I go to work in a crisply pressed Navy uniform.

I am now a sailor and a Navy journalist, proudly serving my country while telling the heroic tales of my fellow sailors. I am doing what I was trained to do back in those classroom lectures in Macky and the Armory, though now for a much higher purpose. My emphasis now, as it was then, is to put out the news, distribute the information that is vital to the family members who have loved ones floating at sea. I also serve a morale-boosting purpose in that people like reading about success of people just like them.

I was overly distraught on that fateful day of Sept. 11, 2001, but didn't do anything about it until three years later, when I raised my right hand and decided to take the oath to defend, at all costs, freedom around the globe.

And so I went through boot camp and a special journalism training program, the Defense Information School, to here, Sasebo, Japan, a small seaside city on the island of Kyushu.

So much of what the Navy does is out beyond the world's camera focus. So, it is up to me to snap the digital images and write down the words, the words that capture the moment. I never realized how important my job was until I went out to sea for the first time and saw the nothingness. The ship I was on conducted a training exercise with heat blazing and no one looking, except for the camera that I was holding. Further impact of my role was shown to me when that story was printed in the base paper. It seemed to make the mission of those sailors mean a little more. This is my life these days. Honor, courage and commitment is my daily credo. I joined because I want to one day see peace on this earth, and I hope to achieve that one picture, one story at a time.

Adam Cole is a journalist in the United States Navy. He is assigned to Commander, Amphibious Group One in Sasebo, Japan. His work can be viewed at www.ctf76.navy.mil.