War Profiles: Joe Finnigan, First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps

Like many of his fellow Marines, First Lieutenant Joe Finnigan left behind his family and girlfriend when he was deployed to Iraq this February.

But Finnigan, a member of the Fifth Marines, also left behind a pending application to Harvard Business School (HBS).

And when HBS e-mailed Finnigan to set up an interview, it was left to his loved ones to get him in touch with admissions officials half a world away.

Finnigan’s girlfriend—Karen Karr—arranged for him to interview with HBS over the satellite phone of Darrin Mortenson of San Diego’s North County Times, a reporter embedded with the Fifth Marines.

“I’m still in shock that it worked. Everyone passed the message along and he was able to contact Harvard,” Karr said. “I just couldn’t let him lose the opportunity to go to Harvard.”

On March 13, in the midst of a sandstorm, Finnigan called to interview with Kristin Hall, assistant director of MBA admissions at HBS.

“He was very professional. It seemed like a normal interview,” Hall said. “You would have never guessed that he was in Kuwait about to go to war.”

Hall added that the interview, which lasted about half an hour, was disrupted three or four times because the storm interrupted the connection.

In April, Finnigan was admitted to HBS, and Karr was faced with the challenge of reaching her boyfriend to tell him the good news.

Karr said that she went through much the same process as before, except that this time around she enlisted the help of NBC reporter Chip Reid.

“I would have loved to see the look on his face when the reporter told him,” Karr said.

Finnigan, 26, is still in Iraq, and according to his parents will defer his entrance to HBS until the fall of 2004.

Finnigan—who graduated summa cum laude with degrees in math and philosophy from Boston College in 1999—attended Officer Candidate School the summer before his senior year, and was commissioned aboard the USS Constitution the weekend he graduated.

Finnigan did not serve in Afghanistan, and his parents said that he had expected to be called to go to Iraq.

His parents, Tom and Cindi Finnigan, wrote in an e-mail that he was “at the tip of the spear during the war.”

“He hasn’t told me a lot, but I think he has been through a lot,” Karr said. “I doubt he is going to want to go camping anytime soon.”

She said that when Finnigan entered Baghdad he was welcomed by cheering onlookers and old ladies handing out flowers to the Americans.

According to his sister Ellen Finnigan—who was recently promoted to company commander—is now part of the effort to reconstitute the local police force in the area where he is stationed.

“He’s been exercising, reading, studying and patrolling the streets,” said Ellen Finnigan, 25. “He is dying for news.”

Finnigan’s younger brother, Tom Finnigan, 24, is also a Marine and he too is in Kuwait. He is with a Civil Affairs Group—working with Iraqi civilians to rebuild the country.

Timothy and Cindi Finnigan said that having their two sons in combat was very difficult.

“We never imagined we would have two sons involved in a war action,” they wrote.

—Staff writer Yailett Fernandez can be reached at yfernand@fas.harvard.edu.