As the nation girds itself for war, Harvard’s “few good men” are readying for possible battle.

Last week’s announcement by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that he wanted to activate 50,000 National Guard and reserve troops has affected a number of lives across campus.

Ruben Marinelarena ’02-’03, a lance corporal in the Marine Corps Reserve, was awoken last Tuesday by a friend who told him, “Ruben, I think you’re going to war.”

A former finance director for the Harvard Democrats and a resident of Lowell House, Marinelarena took off a year after his sophomore year to go through infantry training, and since then has trained one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer with his New Hampshire unit.

While acknowledging that a year in the Marines is not a typical break from Harvard, Marinelarena says that as the son of two immigrants, he wanted to give something back to America.

“I just wanted to serve,” he says.

However, Marinelarena certainly did not think war would come during his second week back at school.

“The only problem is the uncertainty I have to live with right now. Starting all these classes and work seem sort of pointless since I may have to leave sometime,” he says.