WEST CHESTER TOWNSHIP — Lakota West High School English teacher James Green will put his 6-week-old teaching career on hold a year to serve his country.

        A U.S. Marine Corps reserve officer, Mr. Green, 30, has been called to active duty and assigned to an intelligence post at the Marine Corps' Washington, D.C., headquarters. He will return to Washington just two months after completing a program at the U.S. Navy and Marine Corp Intelligence Training Center in Virginia Beach. From 1999 to last spring, Mr. Green worked as a civilian for the CIA.

        His departure is something schools and businesses across the Tristate are facing as reserve military units are activated. Longtime Elder High School guidance counselor and Coast Guardsman Harry Moeller left Sept. 17 and is in New Orleans. All he can tell Elder Principal Tom Otten is that his assignment is longer than 30 days.

        And although no teachers or staff in the Fairfield Schools have been activated, administrators there are compiling a list of those who are in the reserves and could be called to duty, said John Pennell, administrative assistant for business. No teachers or staff in Cincinnati Public Schools have been called to duty, either, but the district's policy on those who are activated is being reprinted in a newsletter there.

        “Sometimes I think, "How inconvenient,'” said Mr. Green, who just bought a house in West Chester Township. “But then I think about other people's lives and their inconvenience that is much worse than mine, and I immediately dismiss those thoughts. Overall, I'm glad to be involved. This is a once-in-a-lifetime tragedy. I will serve my country.”

        Mr. Green began teaching at Lakota West through the Troops to Teachers program. The Ohio Department of Education granted Mr. Green — who already holds a bachelor's degree in journalism — a five-year temporary teaching license on the condition he work toward a permanent license. He had been enrolled in classes at the University of Cincinnati.

        “I always wanted to teach. My parents are teachers in Lima,” Mr. Green said.

        Principal Richard Hamilton said Mr. Green would be missed at the school. A reception is scheduled for 2:45 p.m. Friday at the school.

        Mr. Green said he had to rethink discipline when he began teaching at Lakota. Unlike the military, he couldn't ask misbehaving students to drop and do push-ups, he said.

        “We can do things in Marine Corps — after boot camp — that would make the person not want to do whatever he did again,” Mr. Green said.

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