A young man emerges from an exhausting plane ride, having spent nearly a year in Iraq. He looks down and sees a child looking up at him. “Thank you for fighting for us,” the child said. This is the feeling of a payoff for Frantz Florville, a 2002 Krop graduate.

Frantz enlisted into the U.S. Army immediately after high school. Enlisting was first brought to his attention when a recruiter visited his English class.

“He recruited four other people, but I was the only one that stuck with it after high school,” Frantz said.

Frantz’s missions included work in Afghanistan, Korea, Germany, Iraq, Kuwait, England, Turkey, Qatar and Uzbekistan. After weeks of training in South Carolina and Georgia, Florville walked away with new skills.

“I jump out of planes,” he said. “It’s a pretty grueling process.” Florville trained to be a paratrooper and flies black hawks, a type of helicopter.

Stationed in Iraq, Florville has been away since last November and is returning there in late October.

After four years in magnet chorus, Frantz still hums those tunes in Iraq. “It’s hard in the military. Singing calms the mood,” Florville said. “Besides, the other guys get a kick out of it. It helps the time go by.” Before Iraq, he had been in Afghanistan for a year, and “they were always asking me to sing for them.”

Frantz remembers Deborah Anderson and Wendy Abolsky as the teachers that made the most influence on his life. He kept up good grades and participated in 500 role models (now 5000).

Before enlisting in the army Frantz planned to go to FSU to study music. His mom, who feared him joining track in high school, was “totally against” joining the military. “She did not want to sign that paper,” Frantz said.

Frantz keeps in touch with his friends and relatives through e-mail and letters.

“Emotionally, you learn to shut down some things, but it’s hard because you miss your family and friends,” Frantz said. “There’s no time for relationships, so it gets pretty lonely.”

Overall, he admits it is a rewarding experience. “As soon as I come back it takes a while to get back into that happy mood of mine,” Frantz said. “But it’s a good foot in the door. Not long term, but a good foot in the door. I’d do it again.”