Students in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program aren't sure whether or not they will be sent to Iraq after graduation, but they are certain that they will be prepared to lead, if it comes to that.
Political science senior Don Azul, a logistical officer in the ROTC program who served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005, said he is focused on graduation in August, but is looking forward to returning to Iraq.
"I want to go back," he said. "I want to work with General Ali Attalah Malloh Al-Jabouri again. It was a good task force."
Azul said he knows he will go back to Iraq within two years after graduating, but this time around, he won't be working with intelligence. He will be driving tanks.
Azul started his college career as a student at Boston University before deciding, soon after Sept. 11, to join the Army, which he said served as his "call to arms."
Within seven months of completing his training, Azul found out he was going to be deployed somewhere, but he said he wasn't sure where. For the next two years, he prepared himself to be deployed to Iraq.
"It was the toughest two years of my life," Azul said. "Physically and mentally."
In Iraq, he worked with the Iraqi army, police and government coordinating intelligence but was also fighting on the battlefield, he said.
"We fought on a daily basis," Azul said. "I was working 18-hour shifts and, once, I worked a three-day shift."
Azul uses what he learned when he fought overseas to help prepare the current cadets who will become future leaders of the army.
Based on current operations, one out of five soldiers who goes through this program is likely to see combat within the first two or three years after graduation, Azul said.
The ROTC program is considered the first level of the basic officer-leaders course and, after graduation, soldiers go through two more levels of officer-leaders courses. The courses teach soldiers specialized skills for their specific jobs in the Army before they can be deployed.
Political science sophomore Lance Bailey, who's in the Army ROTC, said the possibility of being deployed after graduation is in the back of his mind, but he believes his four years in the program will prepare him to be a successful officer.
"Whether it's war or peace, I have to do my duty," Bailey said. "I want to go wherever I'm needed. I don't think about where I don't want to go, but where I need to go."
Bailey said his goal is to be an officer in the infantry division but he will serve his country in whatever capacity he is needed.
"My country has given me so much," he said. "I have had every opportunity to do whatever I want. I'm not the type of person who takes liberty for granted. I see that this is the least I can do."
Reach the reporter at: ryan.calhoun@asu.edu.
