Tyler McGuire grew up in Killeen, Texas, which borders Fort Hood, the largest military base in the country. He started freshman year when his father dropped him off at Northwestern in September, 2006. A few weeks later, his dad, a major in the U.S. Army, was deployed for his third tour in Iraq.
McGuire, a Weinberg sophomore, rarely heard from his dad. His father would spend about 15 minutes twice a week talking on the phone with his mother and younger sisters back home. McGuire preferred it; he thought it was more important for his little sisters – both under 10 and too young to understand why their dad was away – to speak with their father.
When his dad, who is also a Gulf War veteran, returned home just before his son’s spring break, “he realized I wasn’t a kid anymore,” McGuire says. “It’s hard to explain it – he’s used to me being a little boy. Over spring break it was like, I’m grown up. I’m in college now.” McGuire’s dad has served in Iraq for about a total of three years since the war broke out in March 2003.
And after becoming accustomed to long periods without him, it is almost more difficult when McGuire’s dad returns than when he deploys – there is an “awkward ‘Hey, Dad…'” stage. “It becomes how our family functions,” McGuire says. “It’s always going to be rough, but you adjust and suck it up.” At school, McGuire focused on schoolwork and college life to distract himself from worrying about his father. He lacked the support system and mutual understanding of his high school classmates in Texas, where he and his friends would casually ask each other, “When’s your dad getting back?”
But on campus, he couldn’t trade fathers’ returning dates with his classmates, as he has yet to meet someone whose father has fought, or is fighting, in Iraq. His NU friends lack a personal connection to the war and an understanding of the military, he says, but he knows it’s not their fault. He opens up to close friends and fraternity brothers about his father’s job if they ask, but it’s not something he offers freely. “I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but they really don’t understand,” he says.
In winter of 2007, former Associated Student Government President Jonathan Webber decided to form an ad-hoc support group for students like McGuire who have a close friend or loved one serving in the Middle East. (Webber’s older brother was on his second tour in Iraq at the time.) He sent a digital flyer out over as many listservs he could access, advertising a free dinner in Parkes Hall for an event that instructed attendees to “leave all politics at the door,” and was “completely confidential and student-organized, solely an opportunity for students to support each other.”
Six students responded, and the group met twice before it dissolved because of busy schedules. Based on the number of people who attended or e-mailed him and by word of mouth, he estimates about 20 people at NU have a loved one in Iraq. Before the support group, Webber says he knew one other person – a faculty member – with a family member directly affected by the war.
Twenty people is only about one quarter of 1 percent of NU’s undergraduate student body, but the war’s effect on them is anything but negligible. “For a small number of students, it affects them a huge amount,” Webber says, adding that his grades dropped while his brother was in Iraq, and his friends noticed a considerable slump in his mood and demeanor. “It just completely takes over your life,” he says. “Thinking about it, worrying about it, obsessing over it.”
Another population of students on campus is more military-conscious: Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps students. NU has 26 students enrolled in the program, according to one of their advisors, Lt. Michael Charnota, who are training for careers in the Navy or Marines. “I do feel removed from (the Iraq War) because it’s on the other side of the world,” Weinberg senior Brian Apel says. “But at the same time my connection to the military makes me more connected to it than most people.” Apel knows of some NROTC graduates who are currently in Iraq. Apel himself will be commissioned as a Navy officer in June and stationed out of San Diego.
But despite a campus military presence, students who know active soldiers have floundered when searching for others with whom they can talk. Even after Webber’s group stopped meeting, people sought him out for support. When Communication junior Amanda King learned her brother – 17 months older than her – was leaving for Iraq last spring, she was “so caught up emotionally” she had difficulty dealing with everyday stress. She sat down with Webber a few times to talk about coping tactics and what her life would be like with her brother fighting overseas.
Scott Burton, a Weinberg junior and Iraq War veteran, also contacted Webber. Burton graduated from high school in Libertyville, Ill., a “very patriotic town” he says, and enlisted in the Marines. It was October 2000, before the Twin Towers fell and suspicions rose about hidden weapons of mass destruction. Burton was looking for some “real world experience,” he says, and wanted to serve before attending college. He was among the first troops to enter Iraq, and he was in Baghdad the day Iraqis toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein. Burton says he “basically did everything you’d expect me to do” – including shooting, running, climbing and riding in trucks. “We weren’t doing any of the fancy things.”
Burton suspects he is the only Iraq War veteran attending NU. He took The Military, Society & Use of Force, and his professor, Risa Brooks, told him he is the only veteran she has taught. Students are often surprised that Burton has witnessed firsthand the suicide and car bombings and Iraq chaos that appear on the front pages of newspapers almost daily. But the former soldier comes off as quiet and thoughtful; he visibly weighs his words when talking. When the Iraq War comes up in discussion sections, especially in his political science classes, Burton listens to others before he shares his military past. He has no problem with students disagreeing with the war, as long as their comments refrain from criticizing the individual troops, he says.
King wears a copy of her brother’s dog tags under her shirt, a pin with the flag of the immediate family of servicemen and a bracelet made of army cord. “It’s a lot of stuff,” she says. “But putting it on everyday makes me think of him and gives me an excuse to talk about him when people notice and ask.” But she tenses up when people try to weave politics into her situation or ask what party she supports. Last year, a group of students hung a banner by The Arch that said, “Iraq War: Yes or No?” The group was proposing a bill to ASG requesting that NU take a stance against the war. King wasn’t ready to talk about her brother’s recent deployment, but she spoke to the group and urged them to do something beyond making a statement. “If you say we as NU feel this way, you end the conversation,” she says. “People just don’t know that there’s this whole third group of people; this third entity that’s not Democrats or Republicans. We don’t want to talk about the politics because it’s more than that for us.”
For this reason, King is sometimes guarded about sharing her brother’s military involvement, for fear it will devolve into a discussion of politics. But she thinks her perspective encourages people to think about the war differently and see the “human side.” It’s more than a question of “stay or go” for her, and she talks with people about how U.S. involvement impacts the Iraqi culture, and if the troops were brought home, how safe those last to leave Iraq would be.
Burton is also willing to discuss his time in the Marines if people ask, but even more so with people he senses are genuinely interested in his personal experience. If he thinks the frat guy who sidles up to him at the bar is fishing for “cool” war stories to share at the house later, Burton says, he holds back details. He has found that news stories about the
war can trigger mixed emotions, and generally avoids them. One time, when reading a New York Times article in his seminar, he became frustrated at the soldiers in the article for allowing themselves to be quoted about morale deteriorating among the troops. Another time, Burton was in class reading an article about soldiers in Baghdad that described a ping-pong table they had acquired. “I remember it there!” Burton thought while reading it. He glanced at the date the article was published – it overlapped with his time in the capital city.
Beside the Iraq War Bill proposed to ASG last year, activism about the issue is largely absent at NU, as it is on campuses nationwide. As former Medill Dean Ken Bode once wrote in an Indianapolis Star op-ed piece, the Iraq War is “somebody else’s problem, someone less fortunate.” Even so, many of those serving in Iraq are as old as we are – the average age of those serving in Iraq or Afghanistan is 25, according to research by Linda Bilmes, a faculty member at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Most soldiers on foot, patrolling the streets and putting themselves in prime position to be attacked, are much younger. Burton, now five years removed from the war, is 25. “There are literally hundreds of thousands of people our age fighting the war for our country, and we’re not,” Webber says. “We’re at NU getting an education, which is wonderful. But it’s also a much nicer life than it is to be fighting half a world away. I think it’s important for everyone to realize that.”
But having been there himself, Burton doesn’t blame his classmates. “You get involved in all the bad, terrible stuff (over there) so people don’t have to,” he says. “You take that responsibility – that’s where pride comes from – but at the same time, you can’t go and criticize people for not having experienced it.” Unlike the riot-filled campuses of our parents’ college years, the fact that service in this war is voluntary makes circumstances very different for the modern college student. “Just imagine if (we) were all carrying a draft card in (our) back pocket,” Bode said in a phone interview.
After six years, the stories of suicide bombings and lost lives can blur together. Webber would like to see increased awareness on campus so people realize that “there are lots of people still dying over there, so please pay attention.” Burton imagines the war becoming a “huge issue” once the general election campaign gets underway. This is the first presidential election King is voting in, and she wants to hear every candidate’s detailed plans about Iraq.
NU needs a stable support network for students who worry about the safety of someone fighting in the Middle East, Webber adds. No data on students with family or friends in the war could be found, and by all indications, it is up to them to seek guidance. Wei-Jen Huang, assistant director for community relations for NU’s Counseling and Psychological Services, says CAPS offers no specific resources for these students, but a few visit on their own. “Maybe people stay quiet,” Webber says, before guessing at how many students have a loved one fighting. “Maybe it’s a hundred, maybe it’s 50.”
For the most part, King has grappled quietly with worrying about and missing her brother. Thinking back on last spring, when she first found out he was leaving, her eyes well up. Even now, she is unable to anticipate how she will react to war coverage, and like Burton, she tries to avoid the news. Sometimes she handles it coolly; other times it shakes her. “If I were to obsess over the news there would be the tendency where it’s dominating my emotions,” she says. “I wouldn’t be able to function.” When she accidentally overhears a news brief detailing a death-toll count of troops in Iraq, she reminds herself that information is a few days old – a tip Webber gave her. If something were to happen to her brother, she says, she and her family would know before the media. Her friends have also tried to help by attempting to protect her from potentially upsetting information. Her roommate subscribes to Newsweek, and when it arrives every week she places it on the kitchen table. If the magazine isn’t there, King knows the cover referenced the Iraq War, and her roommate has hidden it out of sight.
Still, King longs for a more formal support group, and has even thought about establishing one herself. Right now, she and her family are awaiting her brother’s return – his tour is up, and he arrived back in the States yesterday. He’ll fly home to Texas soon.
