In the service: Then v. Now

Thousands of members within the 12 service branches of the military have given service across the seas, through the air and over the land. Two veterans from of the Utah Air National Guard and the United States Navy shared their experiences in training, deployment and other militant operations.

Collier Lunt walked with purpose, fully equipped with a Rancherito’s burrito in hand and two

bags slung over his shoulder to carry the weight of everything he needed as a full-time student at Utah State University and a part-time veteran of the Guard.

An average college student’s weekend may consist of a party here, a football game there, a little four-hour study session cramming for next week’s test everywhere.

Lunt, however, is not just an average college student because his weekends also consist of him completing his job training for his current mission. As a guard member, his mission varies depending on the current responsibilities given him from the plethora of title orders that are given to every member of the military.

According to the Veteran’s Association, only about 500-600 students that attend USU are currently enlisted veterans.

Even though Doug Ruegger may not be among one of the currently enlisted, he has 20 years of military experience under his belt and is one of those that can relate to a handful of the tasks and duties Lunt has performed.

Ruegger served as an active duty member of the Navy for 20 years. Ten years of his service was spent overseas.

The retired veteran sports a Mountain Dew, a Seahawks hoodie reflective of his passion for football and the same purpose and steady step in his walk as Lunt.

Both the U.S. Navy and the Utah Air National Guard are generally given the same duties and orders, but the details of the tasks Ruegger and Lunt have performed over their years of experience are quite different.

Ruegger said the primary mission of the U.S. Navy is to protect the seas, but the variety of tasks he has performed cover so much more than the primary mission can identify. With a thoughtful countenance, Ruegger said he has done everything from being on a ship that hauled marines where they needed to be, to launching missiles from a ship at sea, to being a crew member on an aircraft carrier.

Compared to Lunt’s time spent as a veteran, Ruegger has almost double the amount of years in the armed forces. However, Lunt has performed tasks with the Guard that Ruegger did not even come close to.

As a part of the Utah Air National Guard, Lunt said he does a lot of maintenance on aircraft such as identifying problems and dispatching it to the appropriate shop.

“Honestly I think I have the best job ever because during the summer I can get on two to three months of orders, I can go travel the world and do different types of missions that are pretty important,” Lunt said. “Then during the school year I work two to three days out of the month and go to school full-time.”

Lunt and Ruegger both said their military involvement has given them travel experience they could not have gained anywhere else.

Ruegger’s years in the Navy have brought him around the world three times and stationed him pretty much everywhere on the west coast.

“I was just having a good time, being a small-town boy in all these foreign cities,” he said.

Ruegger relates experiences that range from visiting an alligator park in India, to participating in a full-fledged ceremonial promotion as his crew crossed the international dateline, to bar hopping with a british rugby team in Hong Kong.

Even though Lunt has not sailed or flown the span of the globe three times over, he also has had his fair share of travel.

He has been stationed in places from Colorado to Guam. His favorite place thus far is the Azores where he toured the inside of a dormant volcano.

Lunt also characterizes his military involvement as the jumpstart for his career and said it has helped him do many things outside of the military.

“I needed a way to get to college and I knew I had more potential in life than just working full time,” he said. “I knew I could do better with a higher educational degree so I chose to join the guard as a way to pay for college.”

For Ruegger, however, joining the military held a lot more weight than satisfying financial needs and future aspirations.

Generations of fathers and grandfathers before Ruegger had committed years of service in the navy, creating a strong military background and presence for him growing up.

“I was in a small town in southern Oregon and trouble was coming left and right,” he said. “I just told myself that I had to do something.”

Even after being accepted into a college in northern California to play football for the Redwoods, Ruegger had decided his financial circumstances and personal vendetta would not allow for a college education just yet.

“I called my mom up, asked her what was for dinner, asked her if I could bring a guest over and she just about passed out when I brought in the navy recruiter,” Ruegger said.

Since then, Ruegger has been on 13 active duty deployments and went from being a third-class officer to a lieutenant in 12 years.

When he first started, however, Ruegger said he did not have the same outlook or perspective on the benefits of the military as he does now.

“I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I really didn’t take the military too seriously until after two years of being cut, not being able to find a job and realizing that I needed to go back to the navy,” he said.

From Lunt’s perspective, the mindset of joining the military as an escape from the menial trials of regular life is normal still.

“Sometimes when you get people into the unit, they still have that high school mentality,” Lunt said, “complaining about something you signed up to do and then thinking that you deserve more than what you’ve earned.”

Lunt attributes a lot of this mentality and its tendency to stick around, even after several months of training, to the different types of training and discipline that has taken place within the last eight years.

A lot of the changes in training happened in 2012 when sexual assault started to become a nationally recognized issue, he said.

“They’ve had to put in a lot of measures so that people feel safe when they’re at basic training, which is both good and bad,” he said, “they don’t get the necessary discipline that they might otherwise have had.”

For Ruegger, not only has discipline within the military changed, but also communication outside of the military and an overall increased tolerance level.

“I went from writing letters to my wife to sending her an email to talking to her on the phone,” Ruegger said, “In recent years, we’ve had the gender consideration and now we have a lot more sensitive training.”

The details of their years of service were and are different, but Lunt and Ruegger both emphasized the mission was and still is the same.

“I had met all my goals and the navy was still number one in my life,” Ruegger said, “Now I’ve done my 20 years and it’s time to do something I love.”

Ruegger plans on getting a degree in teaching and continuing his coaching career with the Logan High football team, dabbling a little in coaching rugby as well.

Lunt plans on staying enlisted with the Guard for at least two more years as he works towards an electrical engineering degree and a wedding date set for December.

“If you don’t have a lot of sense of direction of where you want to go and you’re able to do it, I say do it,” Lunt said, “Because then you can actually be a part of something greater than yourself.”

—isabel.forinash@aggiemail.usu.edu

@imforinash