Sigma Chis venture to the Pacific

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Junior John Bell works an office job at Jag Industrial & Marine Services in Jonesville, Michigan, but he never imagined that a Sigma Chi connection could land him on the United States’ third largest aircraft carrier in Japan.

 “The owner’s son is my big in Sigma Chi,” Bell said. “I got introduced to a job through them and I’ve been busy for a year. We found out this project was coming up in March, but this contract was the company’s first government contract. We were basically the forerunners to Jag securing future contracts.”

Bell’s big is Timothy Jagielski, ’13, who immediately started working at Jag after he graduated. His parents started the company when he was a junior at Hillsdale.

“For the project in Japan, we wanted to hire local guys and college guys, because they are more reliable than pulling from a nationwide pool,” Jagielski said. “Originally we had 16 guys, but then they only needed five. The five that went all had previously worked for our company and in our warehouse.”

On May 16, Jagielski, Bell, junior Daniel Bellet, and graduates Daniel Bell and John Tilton flew to Sasebo, Japan, to work on the USS Bonhomme Richard. The men worked 12-hour shifts, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., seven days a week.

“We didn’t see much daylight because we were in the ship, working away,” Bell said. “We were laborers.”

Heavy lifting, painting, sanding, and fire-watching were among the several tasks the five men were charged with on a regular day.

“The first two days, we walked 25 miles across the ship back and forth just carrying stuff,” Bellet said. “When we did fire-watching we had to wear respirators, and we’d sit behind welders and if anything caught aflame we’d just put it out and they’d go back to work.”

The five men rented an apartment in Sasebo and explored Japan when they had a day off.

“It was really cool just driving around,” Bell said. “We had this car that had a CD player, so we went to the store and found this classic hip-hop American CD, it was like the only thing in English you could find. So literally for two weeks the only thing we listened to was Missy Elliott’s ‘Work It,’ and we’d drift down the hills, cruising to work at like 5 in the morning, all exhausted.”

“We were speeding once and we got pulled over,” Bell said. “It was so funny, because the police officers’ lights are on all the time, and they turn on your siren when you get pulled over. But he was the nicest police officer ever. He was like, ‘Keep it 100.’”

Even though they lived in Japan for almost three months, Bell said they learned more Spanish than they did Japanese, since most of the men they worked with spoke Spanish as their first language.

As some of the only Americans in the city — apart from military personnel — Bellet said they got a Hillsdale shout-out when some of them wore Hillsdale T-shirts to work.

“We were wearing Hillsdale shirts, and there were a couple people on the carrier who knew Hillsdale,” Bellet said.

“A couple generals came out and said, ‘that’s a great school,’” Bell added.

Despite the hard work, Bell and Bellet agreed that the experience in Japan was unmatched and definitely worth it, especially since they earned $1500-$1800 a week.

“It was a beautiful country, the people are really friendly,” Bell said. “It was a good experience, I wouldn’t trade it. But like any true and loyal Sigma Chi, we really missed America.”