Branch: Army
Duty: Cook
By Delaney Brown
Keanu Masuda spent his time in the Army as a cook. It wasn’t glamorous. Masuda would often work 18 hour days to make sure that all the troops under his care were fed. He did a little bit of everything, but his favorite work was the salad bar, which required lots of chopping and less time behind the hot stoves.
“It sounds kind of cliché, but I really didn’t know what I was doing before I joined the Army,” Masuda said.
He said his time in the service taught him the important things about himself. It helped him realize what he wants out of life, and more importantly, exactly what he doesn’t want. He joked that he quickly realized he did not want to wake up at 5 a.m. for the rest of his life.
Masuda, now 23, is almost blasé when he talks about his time in the military from March of 2013 to March of 2017. He casually mentions that serving in Kuwait didn’t seem all that different from serving stateside. He doesn’t try to act poetically about what his time in the Mideast meant or try to force a takeaway; he just tells it like it is. It was hot, it was flat, and he spent most of the time working.
“A lot of people don’t realize these days that humans are much heartier. We’re really tough; tougher than what we usually we let on. In the movies, it looks like people are made out of paper. They easily break or die, but you can actually take on quite a bit. It’s more a mental state than anything else.”
Masuda doesn’t see the point in being serious all the time. He’s a lighthearted guy. His friends call him a goofball. Occasionally that attitude got him in trouble in the Army.
One time, Masuda decided it would be funny to skip into his end formation. It had been a long day, the sergeants had drilled his unit hard, and he wanted to lighten the mood a little. Some laughed, some shook their heads, some, like his supervisors didn’t find it cute. He doesn’t regret it at all; he’s happy he was able to provide everyone with a good laugh.
“You should enjoy the moment while you can. Life is already too stressful, there’s no reason to live in constant stress or to be serious about everything,” Masuda said.
Masuda remembers driving away from base for the last time. He was stationed in Ft. Campbell Kentucky for the last year of his service. He said it took aout five minutes for it to sink in that his military service was over. When it did, he blasted the radio and screamed with joy.
Masuda has been out of the service for about a year and a half now, and he said that he feels happier than ever.
He’s a sophomore health science major at USF St. Petersburg, though he’s still not entirely sure what he wants to do when he graduates. Maybe he’ll become a chiropractor; maybe a nurse. For now, he’s enjoying the freedom of civilian life.
Photo courtesy of Stacy Pearsall (resized for web)
