For four years Jacob Warner fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a squad leader for the U.S. Marine Corps infantry. He led groups of 12 to 15 Marines on combat patrol, facing hostile fire and enduring living conditions that, in his words, ""build character."" But the hardest adjustment was that he would be returning from war to a campus where few students can relate to his experience, he said.
Currently a UW-Madison junior majoring in physics and astronomy, Warner said his years serving in the armed forces were the best of his life.
""We rolled into these towns and people loved us. When we came into these villages, they gave us food—a village elder even offered me his daughter,"" Warner said. ""You felt like you're really freeing a country.""
But upon returning to study at UW-Madison, Warner faced what he called awkward questions from students, and his exposure to anti-war protestors began to influence his perception of the U.S. government's policy toward Iraq.
""Now looking back my thoughts are definitely blurred,"" said Warner. ""I feel I was misled about the nuclear and biological chemical weapons.""
Warner said he has not been involved in the anti-war movement, but he commends student activists for being respectful in their protests.
""In my opinion they're doing the right thing by protesting the policy and not the troops,"" he said. ""It's just the ‘kick recruiters off campus' stuff that is stupid—it's a volunteer military.""
Also an Iraq veteran and president of the UW-Madison Vets for Vets student organization, UW-Madison senior Liz O'Herrin said she felt alienated when she made the transition from the battlefield to the campus.
""I came back in the summertime and everything is just beautiful and everyone is mellow,"" O'Herrin said. ""Seeing that after the environment that you just came from where it's noisy and it's war definitely makes you kind of flipped upside down.""
O'Herrin says she was so unprepared for the reverse culture shock of returning from the war that her transition home was more challenging than her initial deployment to Iraq.
""Returning home is more difficult. When you're deployed you are mentally ready to go, but when you come back you don't expect it to be a difficult transition.""
Although she said shehas never felt disrespected by student anti-war protestors, O'Herrin said she does feel out of place around some students as they speak against the war.
""When you walk past them and they're talking about you, you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stick up a little bit,"" she said. ""A lot of those people are speaking about [the war] as though it's such an ‘out there' concept, but for you, it's your experience.""
Like Warner, O'Herrin also started to question U.S. foreign policy upon her return.
""We didn't have the foresight to realize what kind of hornet's nest we were stirring up,"" O'Herrin pondered. ""I read the news every day and I talk to everyone I can and I still don't know.""
Senior and veteran Todd Dennis was so frustrated at the way the U.S. government is handling the war that he joined the UW-Madison Campus Antiwar Network when he returned from duty on a nuclear submarine.
""The U.S. feels that they can use force to threaten any other country without repercussions,"" Dennis said. ""Then people act like they're shocked when the results of our disastrous foreign policy comes back home, like 9/11.""
