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The School of War
Three students who fought in Iraq share their experiences of being in war and coming home

Story by Amanda Codispoti
Photos by Allison Pritchard

It's a war in a place that seems so distant—distant from the lifestyle of most Kent State students, from the climate of northeast Ohio and from the feeling of security. But for these students enlisted in the National Guard, gunfire, spiders the size of your hand and dead dogs disguised as bombs became a part of their lives. Now they’re back from Iraq, and they have memories and stories of a place most of us can’t even begin to imagine.

Primitive Living

Almost a year after coming home from Iraq, Spc. Bob Patrick's watch is still set to Army time. But he’s on his own time now.

Enrolled at Kent State as a political science major, he’s almost a junior. He started college in fall 2000, but he’s spent more time serving in the 323rd unit of the National Guard than he has as a student at Kent State.

Two days into the spring 2003 semester, Patrick was told to report for duty in Toledo within 36 hours.

“It’s the worst feeling I’ve ever had in my entire life,” he says. “How do you say goodbye to family, friends and a girlfriend?”

He spent his last day and a half packing, not knowing where he was going or how long he’d be there. He spent time with his girlfriend and his family. He notified the university of his deployment and got his finances in order. And then he was off, not to return until four days before Christmas.

Patrick arrived in Iraq on May 4, 2003. At the base, things were primitive. Using junk from a scrap yard, his unit made toilets by cutting 50-gallon drums in half and covering them with wood. When the toilets were full, the soldiers set them on fire. They showered with jugs of water in a stall they constructed from a desk and a tarp. In the heat of the desert, the water was always warm—and so were the soldiers. Patrick says ice was a “hot commodity.”

Patrick’s unit patrolled the area where they were stationed, and he says they were shot at sometimes.

“There would be a gun shooting, and you’d look around,” he says. “You couldn’t really light up the countryside. It got frustrating because you wanted so badly to defend yourself.”

At the unit’s second station, the danger worsened.

The unit was escorting soldiers who were consolidating weapons from around Baghdad. Throughout the city, Patrick says, there were piles of guns and grenades “laying around like a kid left his toys out.” Missiles wrapped in plastic were stored in long, rectangular wooden boxes. Some missiles sat in the front yards of buildings.

Soldiers would load the weapons onto flatbed trucks, which Patrick and his unit guarded. Sometimes, Patrick says, they’d be stuck in traffic riding in a truck full of weapons.

“Those were the scary times,” he says. “Those were the bad days.”

Resistance was increasing around their base. Patrick recalls seeing Humvees, damaged from roadside bombs, on flat bed trucks.

“It was just so nerve-wracking driving down the road, “ he says. Whenever he saw anything suspicious on the roads, like a can or a pile of dirt, “You’d almost instinctively put your hand up to shield your face.”

 Returning to the base after a mission was a relief.

“You did take a deep breath when you came back to base. ‘There’s one more day,’” he would tell himself.

“It's the worst feeling I've ever had in my entire life. How do you say goodbye to family, friends and a girlfriend?”

While working in Baghdad, Patrick bumped into a friend and fellow Kent State student he had served with before, Sam Beall, who was working in Baghdad as a military policeman.

“How weird is that?” Patrick says. “It’s funny how many people you end up meeting that you have a connection with.”

A year ago, Patrick was making preparations to get his life back in order. From a base in Iraq, he scheduled classes on Web for Students. He used the Internet to find a house in Kent.

“Doing that kind of thing was great,” he says. “It gave you a sense of security that you actually were leaving.”

In Kuwait, his unit waited for three weeks for a plane to take them to Ft. Bragg, N.C. They had a Thanksgiving feast. They packed. They cleaned equipment. And they waited.

And waited.

And hoped to make it home in time for Christmas.

Arriving at Ft. Bragg, where he had previously spent 10 months on duty, “in a way, was like going back home,” Patrick says.

One week later, he flew to Toledo with his unit.

As the soldiers got off the plane and collected their luggage near a hangar, they wondered where their families and friends were and asked where they were supposed to go. A sergeant told them to get into formation. The soldiers said no. Then the hangar’s door opened.

A band was playing, a flag waved and families and friends cried and smiled as they searched for their loved ones and ran to them.

“That was really surreal,” Patrick says. “If they could have set it up in Hollywood, it could not have worked out better.”

Patrick says he had some anxiety about what things were going to be like when he got home.

“You don’t want to feel like you missed out,” he says. “When you come home and things are relatively static, you think, ‘Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe I didn’t miss much.’”

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