They look just like normal students.

When passing by a cadet from Eastern’s ROTC program, the cadet gives no tip-off or inclination suggesting he or she isn’t a typical Joe or Jane.

But in their free time, the cadets train for future jobs in a United States military force that will be tested in the coming weeks and months.

“My academic major is very important to me,” Joseph Rusey, a senior industrial tech major, said. “My job (when I get out of college) is to be an army officer, so I focus more on (ROTC) and on my military science minor.”

Saddam Hussein and his sons did not go into exile at 7 p.m. or after the 20-minute extension President George W. Bush gave them. As a result, Bush and his advisers have decided to take military action.

Although the cadets were supportive of Bush’s decision, Ryan Purdey, a senior psychology major, would have preferred not going to war.

“I’m not going to take a ‘We must go to war’ stance, I’d opt that Saddam exiles, but if we have to go in, we have to do it,” Purdley, an ROTC public relations manager, said. “Everyone (in ROTC) has their own opinion. There is no specific majority.”

Bush gave Hussein and his sons a 48-hour ultimatum to exile or face military action in a speech broadcast worldwide Monday night.

Supporters said the speech was necessarily straight-forward, while critics said he sounded like a cowboy and was overly brash.

“Bush has had to deal with two different things (with his speeches): the language of diplomacy and the language of action,” said Douglas Bible, a history graduate student and ROTC cadet battalion sergeant major. “The time for diplomacy is over, and we’re looking at war so Bush couldn’t use the same diplomatic language he had in the past.

“I thought his speech was very forthright. He had to use the language of action, so he’s talking about bullets flying and people dying,” Bible said.

Jason Ward, a senior sociology major and the ROTC operational officer in charge of training coordination, said Hussein’s procrastination was a behavioral trend that was allowed to continue far too long.

“Twelve years, 17 UN resolutions — how long do you wait?” Ward said while sitting on a desk in a Klehm Hall classroom with his fellow cadets. “People ask that we wait a little longer, but it has been more than a decade.”

Bible said he knew the United States and Iraq would go to war years ago.

“I thought there would be a war when the UN passed resolution 1441, which pretty much said Iraq would disarm or there would be war,” said Bible, 27, who had been previously activated in the military. “Personally, I didn’t believe Saddam would line up to those terms.”

Bible believed Sept. 11 increased public support for war.

“Sept. 11 changed how we view the world,” he said. “Before we looked at the world as a benign place of freedom, of prosperity. But after the terrorist attacks, many people realized the world is a hostile place.”

Because of Hussein’s actions (or lack thereof), the United States will take military action.

“If we go to war, I believe with our advanced technology we will be able to unleash a lot more firepower than in 1991,” Purdley said.

Shortly after the exile deadline passed, 17 Iraqi soldiers surrendered to the U.S. military.

“I don’t think we’ll see a real pause between the bombs and missiles to the tanks coming in,” Bible said. “I think we’ll see mass surrenders by the Iraqi military, and if they stay and fight they are going to die.

“Not only is our military the best equipped and most advanced in the world, we are also the best prepared and trained.”

The cadets will soon become official members of the military, but for now they are undeployable.

They are college students, if only by name.

Rusey takes 18 credit hours of class while working two jobs — one at a ceiling and wall cleaning business and the other at the Mattoon Papa John’s –and his ROTC obligations.

“I stay fairly busy,” Rusey said.

Purdey reads both U.S. and foreign newspapers in his free time to stay caught up on current events. He has 21 credit hours this semester.

“I try to get involved as much as I can — I’m in the National Honors Society for psychology, and I am very active with that,” he said.

Ward said because he has a military job waiting for him when he graduates, he sees more of a need to pay attention in class than maybe other students do.

“Most the students come to school not knowing what they want to do,” he said. “The people in ROTC have a strong purpose, and they know what they want to do so they have some different priorities.

“When you get out of school, you’re going to be put in a leadership position and be in control of people’s lives — you just can’t take anyone off the street for that.”

The ROTC program accepts students with at least 54 credit hours and provides education and training.

Major David John said freshmen and sophomores participate in ROTC, but are not accepted into the program until they have met the above credit hour requirement.

“We refer to all the students as cadets, but with each year in school they sort of fall into a rank,” John said. “Freshmen are like privates, sophomores are like sergeants and juniors and seniors are like the commanding officers.”

The cadets are required to fulfill their two years of training. They have the option to request deployment, but John said that has never happened.

After a few years of involvement in ROTC, Ward said nothing Hussein and Iraq do will surprise him.

“In the military, you don’t worry about something until it happens,” said Ward, who also said his fiancee could be deployed May 23, and two groomsmen were already deployed. “You just let it roll.”