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Thursday, Oct. 31
The Indiana Daily Student

Jeremy Degler

Jeremy Degler

Jeremy Degler was once a romantic about war.
He’d wanted to be a Marine since he was 8 or 9 years old and then sealed the deal watching Sept. 11 unfold on TV.  
“Really I had no idea. I had this romanticized idea of going off to war. Nothing you can really expect is exactly how it turns out to be. It’s even stranger once you get over there. We train for all of this war fighting and actual blowing stuff up, but when you’re there, you don’t see who you’re fighting half the time because they’re hiding among civilians.”
Degler’s opinion about war and America started changing on the ride over to Iraq with the Navy.
As they stopped at different ports, Degler said he was saddened when he saw how people would look at him when they realized he was
American.
“I was telling people I was in the Canadian Navy just so they would get me a drink. Stink eye is an understatement. Some people would just turn around and walk away.”
Despite the public’s negative perception of the war, Degler said he does believe there are positive changes coming to Iraq, and he said he’s proud of it.
“When I was over there, I saw a lot of good things we were doing, which most of the time didn’t come back to the media here — watching the news all you ever hear about are soldiers dying and roadside bombs. But I saw a lot of people building schools, going door to door helping families get what they needed
to survive.”

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