Vets on campus

BY KELLY BINGHAM The Signpost correspondent

OGDEN - Veterans are among the many people who call Weber State University home. About 100 WSU students have served as soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan or other theaters of battle.

ROTC Cadet Travis Oxborrow joined the U.S. Army in 1995. His service includes Bosnia in 1997 and Kosovo in 1998.

"I joined my junior year of high school," said Oxborrow, WSU criminal justice major. "My family has all been a part of the military in one branch or another. I liked the lifestyle and structure and all that."

Oxborrow has a hard time seeing himself as a veteran.

"I think of veterans like my grandfather from [World War II] and my dad from Vietnam," Oxborrow said. "I'm proud, really. I've earned my right to be an American. It reinforces me to continually serve."

He was deployed to Iraq at the beginning of the war in 2003.

"I was a staff sergeant and squad leader of a scout team during the war," Oxborrow said. "It was my job to find the enemy and tell the pilots to drop their bombs."

During his 8-month deployment, Oxborrow found his job changing after the fall of Baghdad, Iraq.

"We went from being soldiers and warriors to being policemen," he said. "That was a big change. The U.S. Army traditionally isn't trained to be policemen, but it's something we've learned."

ROTC Cadet Dustin Williams, WSU sophomore, enlisted in 2000. His unit repaired helicopters. He arrived in Iraq during stage two of the peacekeeping mission. His unit relieved soldiers being sent home who had already served one year in Iraq. He was stationed just out of Baghdad.

"I remember the moment when I realized I was really in a war," said Williams, WSU business administration major. "I was on a Blackhawk Helicopter coming from Kuwait over Iraq. As we were flying over the desert, I saw the Medi-vacs full of wounded and dead Iraqis."

During Williams's time in Iraq, he endured numerous skirmishes with enemy guerillas.

"Our base got mortars launched into it six or seven times a day. It just got to the point where we got used to it," Williams said. "One mortar took out the front of a helicopter, one hit the mess hall - but there were never any major injuries."

Oxborrow still laments the loss of two of his soldiers who were killed in a raid and an ambush, but he is pleased with what he accomplished while in Iraq.

"I have done a lot of great things there," Oxborrow said. "I've helped to build schools and train police departments. I think I made that place better for at least one other person, and that's good enough for me."

William's noticed significant changes in the Iraqi people during his tour of duty.

"I think the Iraqi people are starting to get used to what freedom is," Williams said. "They were oppressed for so long, now they are starting to be able to think on their own. They can vote now, they can have a say in what they want. It will take time, but I think they're starting to see the benefits."

Oxborrow would like to see the troops come home soon, but to him, it is more important the U.S. finish what it started.

"There's a part of me that wants all the troops to come back tomorrow; no one wants to go over, especially the people that have to," Oxborrow said. "But look what happened when we didn't finish. We didn't stay in Germany after World War I, so we ended up back there a couple years later. After World War II, we stayed for a long, long time, and now Germany and Japan are fine."

Troops have been deployed for 12 months. According to Williams, these long deployments have taken a toll on soldier's families.

"People change after a year. Wives change, kids change and you change," Williams said. "Some of the wives became more independent and weren't used to having a husband around. Some realized they want something else. It changes the whole structure of the family."

Some civilians declare they support the troops, but don't support the war.

"Support means 100 percent; not 75 percent, not 50 percent," Williams said. "You have to support the whole thing."

Oxborrow agrees and goes further.

"Saying that is like pissing on all the hard work and sacrifices we've made," Oxborrow said. "You don't really support us, you pity us and we don't want that. We demand your respect, but we don't want your pity!"

There are many sacrifices the soldiers make during their service.

"Not only are we potentially sacrificing our lives by being shot at," Williams said. "We're putting our lives on hold for this cause, sacrificing school and our futures."

Sacrifices aside, Williams knows what it means to be a veteran.

"To be a veteran means that there is a standard I have to live up to because of all the other veterans out there from other wars," Williams said. "I'm in a class of the elite; the ones that earned it, and I want to keep the reputation of the veteran going."

There are families of fallen soldiers who become vocal war protestors. This disturbs Oxborrow.

"If I had died there and I looked down and saw my mom protesting the war, I would have been disappointed beyond comprehension," Oxborrow said. "They might have not liked that their sons joined the army, but now they dishonor their sons and everyone who died over there."

When Veterans Day comes on Friday, Williams knows how he will be spending it.

"I'll be with my grandpa watching veterans' parades, thinking of people still over there and remembering the veterans from before," he said.

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