ANDY\u00a0PASCUAL\u00a0\u201902\u00a0lives\u00a0a\u00a0double\u00a0life.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0is\u00a0both a prosecutor and a\u00a0defender, a\u00a0civilian and a soldier.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0is Alejandro\u00a0V.\u00a0Pascual IV, a\u00a0first-generation\u00a0American,\u00a0the\u00a0son of\u00a0Filipino\u00a0immigrants. But\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0also the\u00a0third generation to serve\u00a0with\u00a0the United States\u00a0military.<\/p>\n
He has\u00a0tried and won\u00a0felony cases in federal courtrooms and advised on the legality of military strikes in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
By day,\u00a0Pascual\u00a0is\u00a0an\u00a0assistant\u00a0U.S.\u00a0attorney in\u00a0the\u00a0Southern District of Georgia. But\u00a0part of his life also belongs to the Georgia\u00a0Army\u00a0National Guard, in which\u00a0Maj. Pascual supervises the Trial Defense Service, the arm of the Judge Advocate General\u2019s\u00a0Corps\u00a0that\u00a0represents soldiers facing military justice or disciplinary proceedings, including administrative separations.<\/p>\n
\u201cCombining\u00a0both of my dreams,\u201d Pascual says. \u201cHow do I get to do both? I\u2019m so blessed and so lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
When U.S. Attorney Bobby Christine was State Judge Advocate for the Georgia Guard, Pascual reported to him as both a civilian and a soldier. Christine knew Pascual from military court and was eager to bring him on when there was an opening in the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has a sense of purpose and diligence that makes him special,\u201d Christine says.<\/p>\n
People have been seeing that in Pascual for years.<\/p>\n
Thanks to a\u00a0dual-enrollment program\u00a0at\u00a0his Georgia high school, Pascual\u00a0entered Furman with two years\u00a0of\u00a0college\u00a0credits.\u00a0He came on a music scholarship,\u00a0planning\u00a0to\u00a0graduate early with\u00a0a double major\u00a0in music and chemistry\/premed.<\/p>\n
Instead, the\u00a0dual credits\u00a0ended up\u00a0giving him\u00a0additional\u00a0freedom to explore for a full four years.<\/p>\n
Lloyd Benson, a history professor\u00a0and Pascual\u2019s academic adviser, says Pascual did what every student\u00a0should: \u201cLook at the curriculum and try to make it make sense on\u00a0your\u00a0own terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
College wasn\u2019t only about pursuing a skill set; it was\u00a0about developing as a whole person.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a sort of organic inquisitiveness that he brought,\u201d Benson says.<\/p>\n
Pascual shifted\u00a0from chemistry to biology, which led to an internship at the\u00a0Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u00a0in Atlanta. That\u00a0left him wondering\u00a0whether he really wanted to be a doctor.\u00a0And while he\u00a0was a member of Furman Singers all four years, he\u00a0knew\u00a0music wouldn\u2019t be his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll cut everything and just do what I love \u2013 history,\u201d he decided. He wasn\u2019t sure what he\u2019d do with his degree, but \u201cat least I\u2019ll be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Benson suggested\u00a0The Gettysburg Semester, an immersion in Civil War studies\u00a0at Gettysburg College.<\/p>\n
The experience confirmed\u00a0Pascual\u2019s\u00a0decision to\u00a0study\u00a0history.\u00a0It was his\u00a0mother, a paralegal,\u00a0who\u00a0suggested\u00a0an internship at a small personal injury firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaw was something she saw in me because I like to argue,\u201d he says with a smile.<\/p>\n
At Samford University\u2019s Cumberland School of Law, Pascual began to participate in\u00a0mock trial,\u00a0and\u00a0his future\u00a0came into focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to do trials, you want to do criminal law,\u00a0and that\u2019s either prosecution or defense,\u201d Pascual says.<\/p>\n
As a trial intern\u00a0with a prosecutor\u2019s office\u00a0during his third year\u00a0of law school, he was sworn in\u00a0and had the chance to\u00a0lead a case against\u00a0an inmate\u00a0who\u00a0struck a deputy during a prison riot.\u00a0Pascual won. \u201cI was hooked,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He wanted to be a district attorney and he wanted to\u00a0get\u00a0back\u00a0to\u00a0Georgia.\u00a0He got both wishes as an assistant DA with the Appalachian Judicial Circuit, based in Pickens County, Georgia.\u00a0While there, he\u00a0traveled a three-county circuit, working a few dozen trials in the first year alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was where I was honing my jury skills,\u201d Pascual says.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0held two other assistant DA positions, both closer to the Atlanta area where he\u2019d grown up.\u00a0And he\u00a0enjoyed the work. But in the back of his mind,\u00a0Pascual\u2019s\u00a0love of military history and\u00a0the examples of his father and great-grandfather kept whispering that there might still be more.<\/p>\n
Pascual\u2019s father\u00a0was\u00a0a combat engineer in the U.S. Army. He received his\u00a0U.S.\u00a0citizenship while serving in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve truly embraced both American history and Filipino history as my own,\u201d Pascual says.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0the family\u00a0ties\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0military\u00a0began\u00a0decades\u00a0before his father\u2019s service.\u00a0Pascual\u2019s\u00a0great-grandfather fought\u00a0with\u00a0the U.S.\u00a0during World War II.\u00a0He was a\u00a0Philippine Scout\u00a0and\u00a0was taken prisoner,\u00a0surviving\u00a0the notorious Bataan\u00a0Death\u00a0March.<\/p>\n
The recent\u00a0discovery\u00a0of his military ID, which included both his rank and service number, gave Pascual what he needed to\u00a0request service records from the National Archives.<\/p>\n
He hoped for a few pages and some dates.<\/p>\n
What he got was 400 pages\u00a0\u2013 \u201ceverything I wanted to know and more\u201d \u2013 detailing\u00a0a\u00a0career that began in 1914\u00a0and culminated in the\u00a0U.S. Army Forces Far East. His great-grandfather retired in 1947 after serving more than 30 years.<\/p>\n
Pascual\u2019s own journey began in 2012 when he was commissioned to join the\u00a0National Guard\u2019s JAG\u00a0Corps\u00a0and\u00a0began work with the\u00a0Trial Defense Service.\u00a0TDS lawyers represent soldiers\u00a0facing charges for\u00a0military\u00a0violations,\u00a0so the work\u00a0doesn\u2019t conflict with his\u00a0civilian\u00a0prosecutions.\u00a0Pascual\u00a0was\u00a0recently\u00a0promoted to\u00a0major and supervises the TDS.<\/p>\n
He purposely chose the state branch over the U.S. Army Reserves.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the fact that it\u2019s the\u00a0Georgia<\/i>\u00a0Army National Guard,\u201d he says. \u201cWe truly are citizen soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pascual deployed to Kuwait in 2014\u00a0as an operational law attorney. He served with U.S.\u00a0Army Central\u00a0and advised a three-star general\u00a0on the rules\u00a0of\u00a0engagement for attacks on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria.\u00a0His job was to ensure that the\u00a0hundreds of\u00a0strikes\u00a0he oversaw\u00a0complied\u00a0with the\u00a0Geneva Conventions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still surreal that I\u2019m part of the Army,\u201d he says. \u201cI was in the choir, I was out of shape, I don\u2019t like bugs, I don\u2019t like the woods.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pascual\u00a0and his\u00a0wife, Carrie,\u00a0loved\u00a0having their children growing\u00a0up close to their\u00a0Atlanta-area\u00a0relatives. But\u00a0the opening in the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office, based in Augusta, Georgia,\u00a0was\u00a0too\u00a0appealing to\u00a0resist.\u00a0Pascual\u00a0took his current position in 2018.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecution is \u201cthe big leagues,\u201d he says.\u00a0There are more laws in play and\u00a0the cases are significant\u00a0\u2013 NSA leaks, drug deals, gangs, Medicare fraud.<\/p>\n
Christine, the U.S.\u00a0attorney, says Pascual is gifted at the complex work.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can take really disparate facts and understand a situation\u00a0holistically,\u201d Christine says.<\/p>\n
Pascual describes\u00a0his younger self\u00a0as zealous. But\u00a0experience\u00a0has\u00a0matured\u00a0his views.\u00a0For example, as the child of legal immigrants, he\u00a0once\u00a0saw\u00a0immigration in black and white.\u00a0He sees\u00a0difficult\u00a0situations with more empathy now.<\/p>\n
A prosecutor\u2019s\u00a0power and responsibility, he says, should be used to simultaneously\u00a0protect\u00a0society and the rights of the defendant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0pursuing truth and justice,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat is the right resolution in each case?\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the people\u00a0Pascual has\u00a0prosecuted have been sentenced to life in prison.\u00a0Others, he hopes, have had life-changing wake-up calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to have a role in shaping public safety \u2013 it\u2019s all I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cAnd I\u2019ve taken that responsibility seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pascual works across the legal spectrum as a civilian and a soldier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":295,"featured_media":33016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2892,2894,1963],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2020","category-feature-fall-2020","category-furman-magazine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/295"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33015"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35641,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33015\/revisions\/35641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}