Student veteran recalls deployment

Joining the National Guard was natural for Jeremy Koelln - heroism runs in his blood.

Koelln's father was a firefighter and his grandfather was a tank commander in WWII.

"It always kind of intrigued me," he said of joining the Guard. "Plus, one of my best friends was in, so he did the old 'get your buddy in to get some extra money for yourself.'"

Koelln, 23, a first-year sports science and sports management major from Hutchinson, Minn., said one of the biggest factors for joining was money for college.

"The last thing on my mind was the National Guard ever getting deployed," Koelln said. "I joined November 21, 2001. I remember that date because I've got a week left and I'm out."

Koelln was deployed to Iraq from October 2005 through July 2007.

"My first reaction to finding out that we were being deployed? What bone can I break not to go," he said jokingly. "Really, the first thing on my mind was that I didn't want to go. No one wants to go. It's really a rush of emotions."

Koelln, who signed up with friends, said he was relieved to be going with them.

"The people that I joined with, I went with, that was really nice. I have the brothers that I signed up with. I trust these guys. I'm going to need to rely on these guys," he said.

Koelln said his family was there for him, but he had to accept that he was going to Iraq.

"It's a huge emotional rollercoaster. I remember what my girlfriend at the time said, 'don't be a hero, you all ready are. Don't risk your neck, just do your thing and come back in one piece,'" Koelln said. "I'm not looking to be a hero, but if something happens, I gotta do it."

Koelln said one thing difficult to get used to in Iraq was the heat.

"The hottest part of the year, it was 150 degrees outside. We were wearing boots, long jacket, long pants and a hat," Koelln said. "Also, people don't understand that there's no great big sand dunes there. It's agricultural, a lot of farmland, and in the summer, it gets really windy with a lot of sand storms."

He said he got used to sweating all day and drinking a lot of water, and said living in trailers was like living in "a huge fish house."

For the first year, Koelln worked as a vehicle driver stationed in Tallil, an air force base in southern Iraq, and for six months after did patrols from Camp Cook, three hours north of Tallil.

On non-mission days, Koelln said he had to make sure his vehicle was fully maintenanced, but he got to do whatever he wanted, which was usually sleep.

On mission days, "you get up, grab you gear, get the truck, get it fuelled and make sure everything's working OK," Koelln said. "If there's something wrong with your vehicle, it's up to you to report it. If you're on the road, and something goes wrong and it's something you could have prevented, it's you're ass because you just put everyone's lives at risk."

Koelln drove the scout vehicle in his convoy, which acts as the eyes of the four Humvees.

"Our job was to find the bomb and not let the convoy get hit. If the convoy gets hit, it's a bad day," Koelln said. "If there were something in the road, we'd stop and move it. It's all on us, it's our opinion whether we stay or go forward. If you miss something, and it hits the vehicle behind you, it's on you."

Koellen's group got hit once while he was there, and he lost a good friend, who is now commemorated on a tattoo on his right forearm. The words "Brent Koch," "R.I.P.," and his unit numbers are an everyday reminder.

"We were very good at what we did, and after that, we never got hit again," Koelln said. "We thanked the lord for a lot of that stuff, and we put our graces into Brent watching over us."

Koelln said he drove more than 20,000 miles for his job, driving from Tallil to north of Baghdad.

"We pretty much covered the entire country," he said. "It looked the same after you drove it once."

Koelln also has fond memories of having fun with the rest of his group.

"We did a lot of ridiculous things," he said, between describing sleepovers with 10 guys in a trailer and hood surfing on Humvees.

"After the first two months the fear of dying just kind of leaves you," he said. "There's always that chance that you could die. A lot of us just put it out of our heads. We made stupid remarks. That's just how you deal with it. If you don't deal with it, it's gonna kill you. You get so used to it over there. We just did whatever to entertain ourselves, and the stories just come along with it."

Some of the hardest days in Iraq were the special days back home, Koelln said.

"Sometimes you just want to cry. It just sucks when you miss a birthday, a friend's funeral or a holiday. It's not the same. We were just hoping on those days that 'please, if anything, just let us get there safely.' You don't want anything to happen to you on a holiday because that's just going to be terrible on the family."

Coming home after his 21-month deployment was exciting and challenging, Koelln said.

"Short of one, we all made it home," Koelln said. "I changed for the better, but I also came back with more problems and baggage that I never addressed and I'm starting to address it now. It's not like I'm having flashbacks or anything, and I've seen a lot of people come back with anger issues, but I'm a happy go lucky person."

The hardship on family and relationships is another aspect of war.

"My job was simple: make sure I'm alive, keep my friends alive and make it home. I've said it a hundred times that it's a lot harder for the people back home than it is us. It's easier for us to block everything out."

Koelln said the transition was not as easy as he had thought.

"Jumping back into society is tough," he said. "Everyone's got an opinion, whether it's good or bad, whether we should be there or not, whoever's going to be the next president, blah blah blah, did you kill anyone?' And it's like 'shut up.' It's frustrating to deal with everyday people, because nobody is going to experience and know what we went through."

Iraq takes a toll on every soldier, Koelln said.

"For myself, I left as a 20-year-old punk, world by the balls, all I cared about was partying and having a good time. I had a relationship that was very serious. I really liked how life was going. Then, after you go over there, as time goes on, you grow up. You realize that life's too short. I came back at 22, and it's time to grow up."

Some veterans turn to drinking after they come home, Koelln said.

"That's not something I wanted to do," he said. "I wanted to get back to school and start my life."

Focusing on his classes has been a challenge with everything on his mind, Koelln said.

He also wanted to dispel some of the myths about the war with his experiences.

"Yes, we're changing things there," Koelln said. "I know first hand. When I got to do the patrols and stuff like that, I got to go to villages, I got to bring school supplies to schools. When we first got there, girls weren't even allowed to go to school. When we left, there was a brand new school that the unit before us built, girls were attending school, all the kids were speaking broken English, they were doing their ABCs and their counting. They are accepting us there."

Koelln said his family didn't pay attention to the news while he was gone.

"Honestly, what you see on the news is not even close to what is going on over there," he said. "They show all the bad, not once do you ever see any of the good on the news."

He said he believes the war is a good thing.

"It's taking a long time, but what do you expect? It sucks and I lost a good friend, but it's war," he said.

Koelln also addressed the politics the troops hear about from back home.

"It's so agitating when all you hear over there is 'who's going to win the election? We need to bring them all home. We support you, but we need to bring them home,'" he said. "If you support us, and you want to really show your support, then support us. You don't have to agree with the war, or what we're doing over there, but don't badmouth us. Just support the troops."