HBS Interviews, Accepts U.S. Soldier in Iraq

Last month, with his unit deployed in the desert and about to invade Iraq, First Lieutenant Joe Finnigan made an important phone call—to Harvard Business School (HBS).

Finnigan, deployed with the Third Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment, left for Iraq in February with his application to HBS in the mail.

A month later, when HBS called up Tim and Cindi Finnigan to ask to interview their son, they said they had no idea how to reach him. With the help of the satellite phone of a reporter embedded with the “3/5,” as his unit is called, Finnigan conducted his interview through a Kuwaiti sandstorm.

Two weeks ago HBS accepted Finnigan, 26, to its MBA program for the fall of 2004, although he may not hear the news for another few days, his parents said.

“With all the advanced technology and communications and everything, there’s still about a three to five week turnaround going back and forth, which is frustrating,” said Tim Finnigan, Joe’s father.

Kristin Hall, assistant director of MBA admissions at HBS, said that the school had some difficulty tracking down Finnigan for an interview. After Finnigan failed to respond to an e-mail, HBS contacted Finnigan’s parents, who directed the school to Karen Karr, Joe’s girlfriend. Karr knew that the North County Times in California had a reporter embedded with the 3/5. The reporter allowed Finnigan to use his satellite phone to conduct the interview.

Hall said that she made space in her schedule on the morning of March 13, a week before the U.S. invasion began, to receive the call from Kuwait.

“They were in the middle of a sandstorm which kept interfering with the satellite connection, so the phone got cut off three or four times,” she said. “He handled it all very well; he was very mature about it.”

Cindi Finnigan, Joe’s mother, said an e-mail network of friends and family with soldiers in the battalion has become her primary source of information. She sometimes hears about her son’s location only from journalists embedded with the 3/5. She’s had almost no direct contact with him since his February 7 deployment.

“I haven’t spoken to him since then,” Cindi Finnigan said. “I’ve received one letter. And there’s no e-mail.”

“With a very sparse communication, the media’s really been our lifeline to find out what’s going on,” said Karr, Finnigan’s girlfriend.

Finnigan graduated from Boston College in 1999 with a double degree in math and philosophy. Cindi Finnigan said she thought her son’s military experience would help him in business.

“Joe is in charge of about 45 young men, and he’s taking them to combat—and he’s only 26,” she said.

Finnigan’s brother Tom, 23, is a corporal in the Civil Affairs Group in the southern Iraqi city of An Nasiriyah.

“Having both boys over there—you just, you don’t sleep a lot; it’s a little bit of a constant worry,” Cindi Finnigan said. “But you say a lot of prayers and you have a huge support group of family and friends.”