by Bryce Reedy
What brought you to Colorado Mesa University?
“What brought me to Mesa was the fact that it is close. You get a good education for a little amount of money. So, the idea that my family was here [and] I don’t have to live on campus [means that] I am able to live pretty good considering where some of my other colleagues that I served in the military with are going. So, that is what brought me to CMU back when it was Mesa State.”
What are you hoping to do when you graduate?
“One of the things that I really want to do is get down all of the stories that I have from the military. I want to get those down and get them published. And then a lot of freelancing things. I really like video production, but the thing is, I like doing my own thing and doing my own stories so I have to figure out how to incorporate my skills with video production into something that will make me money for myself. But, one of the things that the military taught me was that you can have a plan and everything like that, but I much prefer living life and not knowing what is going to happen.”
What made you decide to enlist into the army?
“I kind of hesitate when I say this, but I am saying it from my point of view. For me the idea of going into the military, you’re basically signing a contract saying that I don’t know what to do with this portion of my life. This two, four, eight years that I am signing away. So, I am giving the government the authority to do with my life whatever they want to do with it. I didn’t know that at the time. The entire reason that I enlisted was because I saw one of the World Trade Centers on fire. And so after all that happened, I went straight down to the recruiting station and said ‘Sign me up.’ In my mind, someone needs to pay for this stuff. And then too I was thinking ‘Well I don’t make my own clothes, I don’t grow my own food, I live a pretty cush life here as an American. I have luxuries that my country affords me. I think I can give something back.”’
Can you describe your time in the army?
“The way that it worked out was I served two duty stations, and I was deployed three times. So the first two deployments were with the tenth mountain division out of Fort Drum up in New York. Then I deployed again with the first and ninth infantry division out of Fort Carson. So we did a deployment to Afghanistan as soon as I got out of basic training. And then I think we deployed for six months, and then we came back and about six or seven months later we deployed to Iraq because the president at the time, George Bush, declared war. And so special operators were beginning to operate in Iraq. It wasn’t long after that that we deployed to Baghdad and we took part in the invasion there. Then I came back and my dad was kind of on his deathbed at the time, he came down with really bad pneumonia and almost died. But, during that whole time I asked for what’s called a compassionate relocation and I relocated to Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. [The relocation] didn’t do all that good anyway though because I never really got to see him because as soon as I got to Fort Carson I got deployed back to Iraq for 16 months.”
What’s one of the stories that you want to get down in your book?
“There is one story in particular that right away comes to mind that I can keep ‘PG.’ We were out on patrol one time, and I had a squad leader that just absolutely hated me. I don’t know why and I don’t know what I did to tick him off, but he hated me. My position was a gunner so I was up in the turret in the Humvees. We were patrolling and the platoon sergeant decides that we are going to pull over for lunch. And we are along this dirt road and no cover, whatsoever. There is a village in the distance and you can clearly see the patrol. At any rate, we stop and eat lunch and stuff like that. [Then] we went to go get picked back up and the squad leader that hated me says ‘Go switch out with the other gunner in the other truck because I don’t like you.’ So I switched out with this gunner from the truck behind us, and we pick up and literally 30 seconds back into the patrol we are moving and we get hit with an [Improvised Explosive Device]. The Humvee that I was just in got hit and the gunner got thrown from the turret. Everybody inside the cab got a concussion and the gunner, he got up. I distinctly remember watching him get up and he pulled something from his leg and he threw it to the side. Way later I found out that what he pulled out of his leg was actually his knee cap.”
What would you title your book?
“Oh, man. Here’s the thing, when I write something the title doesn’t come to the very end. And I know there are a lot of authors and writers that the last thing they write is the introduction. So this idea of the title right off the back is [unrealistic]. I could give you a title right now but I know that isn’t going to be what it is.”
