When Associate Professor Marion Dorfer joined the U.S. Army, she did so despite the fact that her mother, father and brother had all served in the U.S. Air Force. “I think I joined the Army instead of the Air Force because I was more of a rebel. I wanted something different,” says Dorfer, who has taught surface pattern design, computer-aided pattern design and computer design classes in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design since 1992.
Dorfer served four years in the Army, earning a certificate of photography while at Ft. Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado, and a certificate of training in illustration and graphic design while assigned to the 6th PSYOPs (Psychological Warfare Operations) Battalion in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. There, Dorfer worked in a mobile printing unit, supporting the Army Special Forces and 82nd Airborne Divisions during field exercises. “I was doing graphic work on pamphlets, leaflets, certificates and good conduct passes during field exercises. It was fun,” she says.
Dorfer loved “shooting the bazooka, throwing grenades and completing obstacle courses during basic training,” but her most memorable assignment came in the early 1980s in Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, when the area was being used as a center to house Cuban refugees. “It was the saddest thing, seeing these people get off the buses with only the clothes on their backs,” Dorfer says.