With graduation be-hind them, five members of Northwestern Lehigh's Class of 2015 have decided to find new experiences in the military, three in the Marine Corps; the other two in the Army and the Navy.

On Nov. 16, Carter Mell leaves for the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C.

"My dad was in the National Guard," Mell said. "I'm going active duty so he's a little more worried.

"I've wanted to do infantry since I was 12 years old. I always liked history and I always thought the Marines were the more interesting [branch].

"I was impressed with their feats."

Mell met his Marine Corps recruiter through a friend.

"The way it works is you meet up with your recruiter and [he] asks you a bunch of questions," Mell said. "I had to lose nine pounds to get in [but] I lost 18 pounds. You need to be 197 pounds to be in the Marines."

Every Saturday, there are group workouts with the other recruits, known as "poolies."

"[The workouts] are pretty hard," Mell said. "There are a lot of Marines who come in and they tell us what to expect, like being dropped in completely different environments."

Zach Hunsberger decided to enlist in the Marine Corps as well because he wanted to "be a part of something bigger."

"[In the Corps] you better yourself just like you do in college but you also better the lives of other people," Hunsberger said. "My dad was a corpsman in the Navy and my grandfather was in the Air Force.

Hunsberger will be leaving Sept. 8.

"I've wanted to do it for a while from the time I was 8 or 9 years old," he said.

Hunsberger found out about the individuality of the Marine Corps and the deployments and wanted the challenge.

"It's definitely exciting but there's also the thought of what you're going to physically and mentally endure," Hunsberger said.

His family supported his decision.

"I'd say my brothers are really proud," Hunsberger said. "They like the idea they can tell people their brother is a Marine."

Hunsberger's decision to enlist has already changed him.

"I started watching the news a lot more over the last few months," he said. "I kind of want to deploy. I really do.

"It's a way at getting directly at all those people who are creating so much suffering from a first person thing that directly contributes to liberating lives.

"Everybody who comes back looks at civilians and shakes their heads.

"Jeff Tobash is back in the States now. He's still with his battalion. He loves the Marines."

Similarly, Kenny Pilat joined the Marine Corps out of a sense of patriotism but he also wanted "to help people who can't help themselves" which drew him to the Marines because "they do natural disaster relief."

"Though I think it is harder than the other branches, once you graduate you have a brotherhood with the other guys," Pilat said. "My cousin was in the Army and my stepbrother was in the Navy.

"It's something I wanted for a while. When I was little it just looked cool, but now I know the values and work ethic [developed in the military] will carry through your entire life."

Sgt. Brandon Bender is both Pilat's and Hunsberger's recruiting officer.

"We're 'poolies' now. We meet in Walnutport every Saturday for two hours," Pilat said.

Hunsberger said they do a lot of running and calisthenics.

"We normally go on hikes," he said. "There's a trail up in Walnutport that is three miles up and three miles back.

Pilat will leave Aug. 17.

"It's three months and one week of the hardest training in any of the service branches. I've done research," he said. "It's all determined by your MOS (military occupational specialty.)

"After basic, we go to Camp Geiger for infantry training. You're trying to make sure the guy next to you will go home and he's doing the same thing."

Pilat said his siblings who are 12 and 13 "are pretty psyched about it.

"They think it's cool," he said.

"The contracts are four years active duty and four years inactive," Pilat said. "It's like a life time of experience and you can do school while you're in.

"I will have have been places and done things most people will never experience.

"I really don't know what I want to do but I think I'll find out more about me as a person. I think I'll find out what interests me most."

Anthony Brasten leaves Aug. 4 to realize a long-held dream.

"I always wanted the Navy," he said. "It's the only [branch] that offers the Navy SEALs, a brotherhood I have always wanted to be a part of.

"My grandfathers were both in the service, in the Navy and the Marine Corps.

"It's my turn to serve my country and to honor those that have gone before me."

Brasten said the SEALs dive, jump, anything.

"They can operate anywhere," he said.

Brasten has already started physical training two times per month at American Plaza, Allentown.

"You need to swim, do push ups and pull ups and run," Brasten said."Some of my friends already shipped out.

"Some are in the Great Lakes [area] and some are in California. We all want to start some thing new."

On Aug. 25, Josh Kromer will leave for Fort Benning, Ga., to begin his service with the U.S. Army.

"I thought about it for a while," Kromer said. "When a recruiter called me, I set up a meeting. We talked about the process of going into basic.

"Sgt. Johnson talked about airborne school. I want to go to airborne school and hopefully make Ranger. It [involves] parachuting and jumping out of planes.

"I like the challenge of being involved in something bigger than myself."

His score on the ASVAB's qualified him for the job he wanted – infantry.

"I'll probably be deployed. I like the travel aspect and I like the uniform aspect," Kromer said. "My parents were iffy at first but they're OK with it now. My mom was more against it. My dad was always OK with it."

Kromer's contract is for three years and 14 weeks.

"That is 10 weeks of basic and four weeks of AIT," Kromer explained. "I get to come home for about 10 days and then I get my assignment."

Kromer already had PT (physical training) every week.

"It's not mandatory but it's recommended," he said. "We have training in the back parking lot and run at Trexler Park, which is five minutes away. There are two girls.

"They're all pretty good guys. Some of them are already in college. The rest are either seniors or juniors.

"I'm doing a lot of physical stuff now because I know that the first two weeks are the worst.

"They give us PowerPoint presentations that are supposed to be instructive about military courtesy, battle field injuries and flag protocol."

Zach Caruso said he signed up with the Army Reserves in March.

"Me and Josh Kromer enlisted on the same day but he's infantry and he's active duty."

"I want to be a state police officer and the military gives me 10 extra points on the state police test," Caruso said. "But after basic, I still have to go to the police academy."

Caruso will be going to basic in Missouri.

"I'll be there for a total of six months," he said. "I leave July 28, come back for college and go to training once a month."

Caruso will attend Lackawanna College.

"It's right next to my Army base," he said. "My parents think it's a good decision. My father and grandfather were over in Vietnam [and] my grandfather was a state policeman for a long time."