IU student veterans attempt to cope with readjustment after service overseas

Nathan Bobay and Matt Rybka don't fit the typical image of veterans. They don't have grandchildren to regale with stories of their military service. They don't spend their evenings in the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall. \nThough these men are still completing their college degrees, they've been across the world and back in the service of their country. Bobay and Rybka, like many of their comrades who served in Iraq, count their experience in conflict as largely positive, though it changed the way they look at the world.\nBobay a senior, joined the Indiana Army National Guard to help pay for his college education. When he signed up in January 1999, he never thought he would be sent to a far-off nation and potentially put in harm's way. \n"When I joined, the national guard hadn't been called up for like 50 years. It was something that I wanted to do to get college paid for and for life in general it would be great experience," he said. "I never expected to get called up. And then Sept. 11 hit."\nIn November 2002 the military put Bobay's National Guard unit on active duty and sent him to Kuwait to support the invasion of Iraq. He and his unit provided security for an abandoned Iraqi airbase just outside the city of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. His unit was never under fire and he describes his nine months in Iraq as a "good experience," but it was a tough time for him, he said.\n"We lived pretty much the roughest life imaginable," he said. "There was nothing there."\nHe said he lived in tents with sand floors and slept under the stars all the time. But, the worst part about his stay in Iraq was the heat.\n"It's extremely hot. We had sandstorms everyday in the summer time," he said. "It's like being in a sauna with a hair dryer blowing on you. It was literally that hot."\nThe living conditions made him appreciate the amenities of living in the United States and made him a stronger person, Bobay said. \n"When I first came home, I remember just laying in my bed in my parent's house where I'd grown up and feeling like, 'I'm finally home,' because I'd been thinking about it and dreaming about it for so long."\nHis homecoming was a happy one, he said. When his unit returned to Fort Wayne, the people of his hometown threw them an impromptu parade. That night he and his friends got together and drank beer and ate pizza, just like always.\n"Returning to civilian life wasn't that tough for me," he said.\nHomecoming has been more difficult for Rybka, a sophomore. Rybka spent more than four years in the Marine Corps on active duty and returned home in September 2003, enrolling at IU shortly after.\n"Sometimes I think I'm still adjusting," he said. "It's been a rough time. You go from such an experience where you're linked to people. These guys were almost closer to me than my actual living family."\nRybka said he still misses the relationship he had with the men in his Marine Corps unit and has had a hard time dealing with the social atmosphere at IU, where friendships are more fleeting and bonds much less strong.\n"It's really hard to adjust to stuff like that," he said.\nRybka said he, like Bobay, also views his experience in Iraq as a positive one, though the poverty he saw moved him.\n"One of the biggest things that affected me was seeing kids begging for food," he said. "You grow up in the United States, when you're a kid you go to the toy store and beg for a toy."\nBoth Bobay and Rybka said they sympathized with the families of Brett Hershey, the IU student recently killed in Afghanistan while serving in the National Guard.\n"It's really sad because somebody's losing a brother, a cousin, a son," Bobay said. "It definitely hits home."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Michael Zennie at mzennie@indiana.edu.