Sudanese 'Lost Boy,' Now U.S. Citizen, Enlists In Army

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Jacob Majok survived the Sudanese war that killed his parents.

Now he has made a decision that likely will put him back in a war zone: He enlisted in the U.S. Army.

"I became an American citizen and I think it's my duty to defend America,'' said Majok, 25, one of the young Sudanese men referred to as the "Lost Boys'' who began resettling in the United States in 2000.

"This world is changing and it has changed,'' he said. "Our country has been at war over 23 years. If we decide to go to the army, it will be an opportunity to defend America and help the home country.''

He signed up June 28 after graduating cum laude from Le Moyne College with a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry.

Since 2000, more than 500 Sudanese refugees have resettled in Syracuse through refugee programs run by InterFaith Works and Catholic Charities.

Of those, 95 are the young men called the "Lost Boys.'' Majok is the first of them to join the Army, said Sgt. 1st Class Peter Palumb Jr., who recruits for the U.S. Army in Syracuse.

"He's such a wonderful kid, and it's nice to see somebody that comes in and wants to give back,'' Palumb said of Majok. "Our United States will be a much better place if we had a lot of Jacob Majoks here.''

Majok, who became a U.S. citizen in December, began thinking about the Army a year ago.

Besides wanting to defend America, Majok aspires to become a physician's assistant or a doctor. He hopes his experience in the military will help him achieve that goal.

"He told me he likes the idea of serving his country and using the education benefits to accomplish his career goals,'' Palumb said of his first meeting with Majok. "After that we had a couple of meetings, and after that he was raising his right hand to serve his country.''

Majok said the Iraq war is a justified war because it's a fight against terrorism.

Also, many of the weapons used to fight the war in Sudan came from Iraq, he said.

"My father and mother were killed by guns from Iraq,'' Majok said. "Iraq was seen as a threat to the United States, but it was a threat to the whole world. Saddam Hussein was a threat to other countries. All the allies of the Sudanese government were weakened after his death. Saddam has been a threat to peace in Sudan for more than a decade.''

Majok was 5 when he fled Sudan in 1987, leaving his parents behind. Government troops fighting the rebels burned villages, raped women and killed young men, Majok said.

Majok was among thousands of young boys who spent much of their adolescence on the run, fleeing war, famine, slavery and living in refugee camps in neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya.

On the way, the older boys took care of the young ones. Majok remembers Baranaba Bol, then 12, carrying two little boys on his shoulders, scrambling for food or carrying the pail of drinking water for the children. Bol is now an Episcopal priest in Australia, Majok said.

Ethiopia was Majok's first stop. There he attended a United Nations school and started a new life.

He was on the run again when war broke out in Ethiopia as rebels tried to overthrow President Mengistu Haile Mariam.

"It was a disaster for the refugees,'' Majok said. "The rebels chased the refugees out.''

Majok returned to Sudan in 1990, but fled a year later when the Sudanese government started bombing civilian areas.

The boys made their way to Kenya, where they spent 10 years in Kakuma refugee camp.

In Kakuma, Majok finished high school and started teaching at a United Nations school, earning extra money to supplement the rations of dried corn and beans he got from the U.N.

It was in the refugee camp that he learned that his parents had been killed in the war.

The first sign of hope that he could leave the camp came in 1994 when he was interviewed by U.S. State Department officials.

It wasn't until six years later that the first of the 3,800 "Lost Boys'' started to arrive in America.

In Syracuse, he worked as a certified nursing assistant and graduated from Onondaga Community College with an associate degree in math and science. He went to Le Moyne on a Jesuit scholarship.

He's no longer a free person, he said, so he'll have to go where the Army sends him.

His uncle in Sudan supports him, but his sister in Australia objects because "she thinks I may die in Iraq.''

yup. check this out:

Four ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’ receive scholarships to Le Moyne College(circa 2005)

By Friar Phil Kelly, OFM Conv./ SUN contributing writer

Four ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’ receive scholarships to Le Moyne College

“We were running through the jungle away from the soldiers, but we got lost and just fell down for the night. When it got dark the jackals and tigers came around where we were lying, and started eating on us. Those who could stand up ran away, but some were so weak that they got eaten. That happened every night.” Mochar Agoot fiddles with the pen and pencil set he has just received from Dr. Barron Boyd as a symbol of the full scholarship he and three other Lost Boys had just been granted at an Aug. 18 ceremony at Le Moyne College. A quick look at his face shows that the jungle scene is never far removed from his consciousness.

In his opening remarks Dr. Boyd challenged the men to work hard and accomplish the high academic standard within their grasp and abilities. He emphasized that they need Le Moyne as the next step in their careers, but he pointed out forcibly that Le Moyne needs their stories, even more, in fact, than they need Le Moyne. “Tell your stories, over and over. We can forget them if you do not tell us about how you arrived in America.”

Their stories of courage, drive and determination were right in the room. Although four men received scholarships, one of them, Lino Ariloka, had to work extra hours at his job and could not get time off to come to the ceremony. That is the economic reality in which these men live.

Bishop Thomas Costello began the ceremony by blessing the assembly. Father Charles Beirne, SJ, president of Le Moyne, described the event as exemplifying the commitment of the school to international awareness and social justice. Dr. Jim Wiggins of the InterReligious Council of CNY mentioned that the day was an example of profiles of courage on the part of the Lost Boys and an example of a profile of commitment by Le Moyne, while Dan Young hoped that this example would show others that “Anyone has the ability to achieve their goals with hard work and determination.”

But a few minutes of privacy with the young men demonstrates the potential for story-telling. These slender, soft-spoken young men are of the cohort of some 100 Lost Boys of Syracuse, just a few of the estimated 50,000 male children who fled the atrocities of Southern Sudan beginning some 20 years ago. They faced an incredible dilemma: Join the Sudanese Army as Muslim boy soldiers or be killed. At seven or eight years of age, these men chose to flee, in small groups, or sometimes alone, into the jungle, headed in the general direction of Ethiopia. They learned survival in a stark manner. “We had nothing to eat, and if one of us ate a root or a leaf and died, we learned not to eat them again.” This is the common survival tale told by numerous men. Each man has his own particular account of survival.

Mochar continues his tale of the desperate flight through the jungle. “Jacob, who is standing right beside me here, and I spent many nights in the jungle, sleeping beside each other. We were about eight years old, and we were running because if we did not escape we would have been forced into becoming Muslim. You can go longer without food than water. I drank my urine. Everyone knows that you can become very sick from drinking your own urine, but we did not get sick. But the problem is that if you do not have anything to drink you stop producing urine, and you have nothing to drink. It was not like here on the Le Moyne campus [he paused for a second to look out at the green grass being sprinkled as he spoke] where everything is green. There it was just scrub trees and sand. We would all pray for just a bit of water. Sometimes we would find really dirty water and drink it and not get sick. I think that was the greatest blessing we received from God. We drank our own urine; we drank dirty water and did not die from it. That is a blessing from God.” What does Jacob Majok remember? “The hunger and thirst of running to Ethiopia. I remember the first time I drank urine, the taste. But we had no choice; we had to keep running. Then we made it to Ethiopia. We were thousands of young boys in a refugee camp. There was a civil war broke out and the camp became part of Eritrea. The Eritrean army attacked us and we had to flee back to Sudan. I remember the terror of crossing the Gilo River with the soldiers shooting at us. The river crossing is very dangerous, some of the young boys could not swim and they drowned, and crocodiles infested the river.” His story is all too familiar. They ran for miles from the Eritrean and Sudanese army and lost more and more of their companions until they finally found refugee in Kenya and came to the U.S. years later.

Marino Mauro remembers being really frightened of being killed by the bombardment, which went on and on. He, like so many of these men, was separated from his family, and he is still searching for them.

And what do they hope to study at Le Moyne? Jacob and Marino are biology majors and hope to apply to medical school. Machar hopes for a double major, registered nursing and psychology. “There are so many of my brothers here in Syracuse who have severe psychological problems and there is no one to really hear and understand them. They are afraid to come out of their rooms,” Machar said.

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	Jacob Majok, right, gets an Army cap from recruiter Sgt. 1st Class Peter Palumb Jr. before leaving for basic training. (Photo by Dick Blume)