Current Release: April 28th, 2009 | Vol. XXX Iss. 10

Photo by Matthew Ryan

Students worry about deployment

By Lauren Perry

After being hindered by his service in the Army for an entire year, senior Brian “Specs” Bostian is finally going to graduate at the end of this summer.

“Hopefully,” he said. “I have to finish an internship, but that’s it.”

It was a call from the Army Reserve to go to Iraq that put him off an extra year. Taken out of school, Bostian had only a 16-day break back home during that time. His position was in a military postal service office, “one of the few that were mobile.” He got used to going out on the roads and delivering bad news, like divorce or “Dear John” letters.

“I pretty much risked it all,” he said. “I would’ve graduated last year. I feel like I threw everything away.”

The 23 year old Sergeant isn’t looking to go back, either. But with President George W. Bush’s proposal of a troop surge, he just might.

“I have a gut feeling it’s going to happen,” he said.

Sophomore William Willard of the U.S. Marines agrees.

“I know I’m going over there in the next two years,” he said. “It’s obvious.”

But if Congress starts withdrawing troops, his chances of going will decrease.

Willard isn’t as supportive of the war as he was in the beginning.

“I’m against the political aspect of this war,” he said, “but if I’m in a combat situation, I’m fighting to keep the guys to the right or left of me alive. You don’t care about the politics, then. You don’t care about yourself – you care about the guy beside you.”

Willard has just finished 13 weeks of boot camp for the Marines. He is on Reserve, like Bostian, and will be going to Twenty-nine Palms, California this summer to train to be a radio field operator. In a combat situation, Willard’s job is to keep radio contact and, if needed, call for help.

But Willard wants to finish college so that he can become an officer, which requires a college degree.

“They’ll pull me out of school,” he said. “After August of this year, they can pull me out whenever they want.”

Marines only go overseas for a maximum of seven months, whereas Army soldiers, like Bostian, can stay there for up to 18 months.

“I look up to Specs,” said Willard, “’cause he’s been over there before. If I was sent over he’d be the first person I’d tell.”

This is part of Bostian’s job now as a Non-Commissioned Officer – to tell soldiers about what it will be like in Iraq.

“Like the sand,” he said. “It has a tendency to get into everything – hair, eyes, clothes, guns, equipment. My hair looked almost bleached at one point.”

Both Willard and Bostian, though pessimistic, are hoping that the troop surge does not happen.

“The thing you dread,” said Bostian, “is that every day is the same. Here you have weekends, holidays, you see friends; time passes. Over there it’s the same day, over and over. Maybe you get woken up in the night because of an attack, but time moves really slowly. I made it through by keeping in touch with people back home.”

Writing letters is his “thing to do.”

“When you’re stuck over there with no 7-11 around for miles, writing letters is pretty much what you want to do,” he said.

After graduating, Bostian hopes to secure a civilian job in the government and live the simple life. He’d be happy as long as he has just job security, health benefits, and a place of his own.

“I’m not aiming to go back,” he said. “I’m just trying to graduate and find something peaceful to do with my life.”