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Thoughts of City Tech Help Sustain Jude Poku During Iraq Military Service
Poku with mentor Brown
The word “breathalyzer” can bring to mind unpleasant thoughts of being pulled over by a state trooper and having your blood alcohol level checked. For New York City College of Technology (City Tech) student Jude Poku, however, the word triggered an opportunity to create a lab that will be used by countless students long after he graduates.
Little did Poku know that in working on the breathalyzer lab he would build a relationship with his mentor, Chemistry Professor Pamela Brown, that would sustain him during the long months he was about to serve in Iraq.
“Jude was a very good student and I knew he wanted to go to medical school,” explained Brown, who is now City Tech’s Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences. “I thought an opportunity for him to do research would improve his chances for admission.”
Dr. Brown asked Poku to simulate a breathalyzer using materials on hand in the lab and then to develop a lab exercise so that other students could duplicate the chemical reactions involved. To work on the project, Poku, 26, a Flatbush resident, received a stipend from the National Science Foundation’s Louis Stokes New York City Alliance for Minority Participation and Dr. Brown received release time to work with him through a Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York grant.
“He went beyond the initial assignment by not only developing the procedure but optimizing it,” Dr. Brown says. “That is, he found the minimum reaction time and materials needed to get reproducible results.”
Poku’s work was presented by Dr. Brown in March 2005 at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in San Diego, and Poku presented it at the New York Chemistry Students Association’s 52nd Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, held at Queensborough Community College in May 2004.
Days later, Poku’s world as he knew it changed dramatically -- his army reserve unit was called up. Like many other young people, he had signed up primarily to pay for college. Before he knew it, his infantry unit, MOS 11-Bravo, was deployed to Iraq and put on convoy patrol in Taji, a small town just outside of Baghdad that was heavily targeted by insurgents. Subsequently, his unit was sent to Baghdad to patrol Route Irish, the main artery leading to the airport, which was a hotbed of insurgent activity.
He speaks with gratitude about the packages he received at the base from his City Tech mentor: “While I was in Iraq, Dr. Brown wrote to me and sent me biology and MCAT (entrance boards for med school) study guides. When I would return to the base after doing a convoy patrol or searching homes for insurgents and weapons, I would read and study these books and think about being in the classroom again, if I made it out alive. Reading those books kept me going.” At least twice a week, he says, either a U.S. military vehicle or a civilian vehicle was blown up by suicide bombers. More than 20 men in his unit were killed during his tour of duty.
Poku also had plenty of time to think about the legacy of lab research he left behind at City Tech, and all the skill and hard work that went into that achievement. He had written a laboratory exercise for General Chemistry students that simulated the action of a breathalyzer. A breathalyzer works by measuring the amount of alcohol in the breath and correlating it with the blood alcohol content. There is the same relationship between the vapor above ethanol solutions and the concentration of ethanol in the solution. Vapors above ethanol solutions were bubbled through a yellow acidic potassium dichromate solution. The greater the alcohol content, the bluer the solution became, with the reaction monitored with a visible spectrometer or colorimeter.
As part of the lab exercise, students individually calculate how many drinks it would take to become legally drunk based on their weight and sex, and how long they would remain drunk. That’s pretty important information to know, since 39% of automobile fatalities in the U.S. are alcohol related, according to 2004 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figures. The lab is now part of City Tech’s General Chemistry II curriculum.
Five months after landing in Iraq, Poku’s humvee overturned and the chest, shoulder and knee injuries he sustained cut short his tour of active duty. Back in the New York area, he was able to attend City Tech as a part-time weekend student during the fall while continuing to serve at Fort Dix, NJ, until his discharge came through on January 11 of this year. “I feel lucky to have gotten out with all my limbs intact; many didn’t,” he says. With renewed focus on academics, he is enrolled as a full-time student for the spring semester.
Born and raised in Guyana, Poku first visited New York in 1990 and then came here to stay in 1998. “I was always good in math and science and my father had been encouraging me since I was little to become a medical doctor,” Poku recalls. “I had to get away and see what I was about.” Life here ended up being about earning $180 a week for 50 hours of work at a store in Downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall.
“I wasted a couple of years at these dead-end jobs before realizing the long hours would not let me go to college,” he explains. “I had already scoped out City Tech, which was near my job, and thought that joining the military would be a solution. I was advised at the army recruiting office to join the reserves if I wanted to attend college. Once I completed basic training, I was told, I’d just have to report on weekends and my college tuition would be paid.”
Poku signed up in 2000. On September 11, 2001, his reserve unit was the first to respond after the twin towers crashed down, and he and his fellow reservists were involved in securing the area around the site. “Family members would come by with photos of loved ones, asking if we had seen them and begging us to find them. I felt kind of helpless.” His unit spent the next year guarding Penn Station and other public areas around the city, so he had to put off college again.
“Before 9/11, I wasn’t too keen on the military,” he notes. “But after, I felt honored to have served my country and realized I didn’t want revenge on the perpetrators -- I wanted to be part of an effort to make sure this never happened again.”
After one year of duty in New York City, Poku had a year off and was finally able to stay in school for two semesters in a row. Enrolled as a Search for Elevation and Education through Knowledge (SEEK) student, he benefited from the academic support services and financial aid offered through this education opportunity program. He thrived and his grade point average was a 3.6 on a four-point scale. He also volunteered his time as a chemistry tutor.
“Basic training in the military gave me the ability to focus and helped me get back on track after the years of menial jobs,” he says. He has applied for admission into the CUNY BA Program, which he hopes to enter next semester after completing his associate’s degree in liberal arts and sciences.
Further down the road, after med school, he intends to travel to less fortunate countries and treat their people. “I saw a lot of sick Iraqi women and children while stationed there,” he explains. “My time in Iraq taught me to be grateful for what I have here in the States and to extend a hand when I can.”
1/23/06
Photo by Michele Forsten
