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(From left) USF seniors and U.S. Army cadets Keith Wei, Jillian Queja, Christina Merrill, and Michael Nau are preparing for their possible deployment to Iraq.
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ROTC Students Prepare for Possible Deployment to Iraq
Last month, USF senior Michael Nau, a cadet in the U.S. Army’s Reserve Office Training Corps, found out his dream had come true: a commission to the Army’s 101st Airborne division as a second lieutenant. And he’s well aware of what will probably come next: deployment to Iraq.
“I want to go out there and make a difference,” said Nau, who will be trained as an air defense officer. “Christmas in Baghdad is how the joke is now.”
Nau and some of the eight other graduating USF cadets, four of them women, have a ?good possibility? of being sent to either Iraq or Afghanistan, said Lt. Col. Daniel Mahoney, chair and professor of military science and head of the ROTC program at USF. Most of the cadets have trained or will be trained in support or medical services. Only Nau, and Keith Wei, who will go into an armored division, have chosen to join the front-line troops. Lightly armed support services, however, have also been vulnerable to attack in Iraq.
“I’m nervous but I try not to think about it,” said Jillian Queja, who has opted to become a signal officer and will receive her commission in August. “I feel like if I’m scared, I could endanger my troops.”
The students interviewed discussed how they had prepared themselves for their possible deployment. Christina Merrill, a nursing student, has watched CNN specials on nurses in Iraq to get a feel for the environment. “It seemed like the medical staff was well protected,” she said. “I noticed they wore desert fatigues and scrub shirts.”
Wei said he chose armor because he wanted to test himself in highly stressful situations. “Combat units really test your potential,” he said. The wounding of his older sister, a company commander, while serving near Falluja has not deterred him. “My sister supports what I’m doing,” Wei said. “There's a camaraderie in the military you won't find anywhere else. The way I see it, we don't go to war for political reasons, we go for our brothers and sisters in arms.”
All the students stressed that they are motivated by the humanitarian aspects of their missions. “I hope to help build trust with people over there and over here,” Nau said, who added he was once targeted by anti-war protesters on campus. “Nursing ethics and army ethics coincide,” Merrill said. “That’s why I want to be in the army, to care for the whole person.”
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