Young soldiers grew up watching America at war

FORT DRUM —Ten years ago when terrorists crashed four planes and killed some 3,000 people in Manhattan, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, Dustin J. Paciorek was sitting in a fifth grade classroom in Clio, Mich.

All he can remember is that he couldn't wrap his mind around his teacher's explanation of the terrorist attacks.

“I didn't know what was going on,” the 20-year-old said.

The event was big, he realized, when he came home to see his frantic mother carrying two gasoline containers. She had stocked up on canned food and water.

But that's all he remembers of the event. Nobody he ever knew died that day either.

And yet thousands of American pre-teens that day started on a path that led them to join the military and the war against terrorism. Today, Spc. Paciorek is stationed at Fort Drum and awaiting his first deployment to Afghanistan next year.

Growing up watching their nation at war has made these younger soldiers aggressive and geared for combat, said Sgt. 1st Class Joel Orozco, a 36-year old artillery soldier from Sylmar, Calif., who had already been in the Army for eight years when the attacks happened.

“They feel more Supermanish,” he said. “They're more aggressive.”

The younger soldiers quickly prove themselves in battle, but, he's seen them challenged by garrison life when they return from deployment.

“They have difficulty adjusting to the calmness,” he said. “All they know is Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Ten years ago, Spc. Paciorek had few connections to the military. His father was a former Army truck driver and many relatives on his mother's side of the family had been Marines. But home in Michigan, the wars and the terrorist attacks seemed to be in a different world.

That is, until he saw a convoy of Humvees at a gas station in Gaylord, Mich.

“I thought it was the coolest thing in the world,” he said.

“That's awesome,” he remembers telling himself. “I want to do that. They were carrying guns around and I was like, ‘I want a gun.'”

He kept on watching the news at school and saw the war in Iraq begin in 2003.

“In middle school it got worse,” he said. “And in high school, that's when we started talking about it.”

The Army still appealed to him, even in 2007 when the United States sent a surge of more than 20,000 soldiers and Marines to calm the country.

By the time was 17-years-old, more than 4,000 Americans had died in Iraq and the death toll in Afghanistan was spiking up.

Despite knowing the dangers, he spoke to an Army recruiter who wooed the young student over burgers at McDonald's.

Dustin made up his mind.

“Yep, the Army's the place for me,” he remembers thinking. “I can go shoot some people.”

The soldier enlisted as an artilleryman and found himself at Fort Sill, Okla., for basic training.

There, he met a drill sergeant, Clarissa P. Rasavongsy, who joined three years after her personal experience with the attacks.

She was a 21-year-old bartender in Newark when she heard of a plane hitting a World Trade Center tower. The buildings could be seen from her job, so she climbed on a roof and saw the smoke puffing from one tower.

The horror continued when she saw the second plane hit. She would soon learn that her twin sister's boyfriend died in the attack.

Two years later, motivated in part by the experience, she considered the Army and gave herself one year to decide. When the time came, she asked a recruiter what job the Army needed the most. He signed her on as a truck driver.

“Within two weeks, I was in basic training,” she said.

By the time she and Dustin crossed paths at Fort Sill, she had completed three deployments as a truck driver, braving rocket-propelled grenade fire and roadside bomb blasts on Iraq's deadly roads. She volunteered for the last two deployments and reenlisted directly after the second tour — the one she considered to be the most dangerous.

She stuck with her job, she said, because she enjoyed it.

“I was proud of what I was doing,” she said. “The best years were being downrange.”

Her time in combat shaped her as a drill sergeant and, while she doesn't remember Spc. Paciorek as a recruit, he remembers her.

When asked what kind of a drill sergeant she was, the young soldier hesitated and flashed a mischievous grin.

“She was a nice drill sergeant,” he said.

Sgt. Rasavongsy's job was not to be nice, however. It was to prepare soldiers for combat. She did so, in part, by instilling Spc. Paciorek with discipline.

“She taught me how to shut my mouth,” he said.

And one day, during a radio communications class, the soldier remembered her catching him sleepy eyed. She made him spend some time in a squat with his back leaning on the wall and his arms out holding his rifle.

His was wide awake after that.

The recruits, she saw, were a diverse bunch. They ranged in age from 17 to 39. Some joined for financial reasons. Others had some attachment to 9/11 and, others, like then-Pvt. Paciorek, had little recollection to the terrorist attacks.

Fighting was a reason Spc. Paciorek joined, but it was not what the Army wanted him to do for his first assignment. When he received his orders for his first duty station, he was surprised to see where he was going — South Korea.

“What's in Korea?” he remembered thinking.

He spent a year there but he wishes he would have deployed instead. His current unit is scheduled to do a tour in Afghanistan next year. His mother is nervous, though, he said, but he's got only one major concern. The only boy in his family and with no children of his own, the soldier is scared that nobody will carry his name if he dies.

He's looking forward to the deployment, but isn't sure what to expect. The unit has been doing a lot of training in the field, he said, to prepare him. With a pending promotion, he plans to reenlist soon.

Ten years ago he was in elementary school classroom and soon he will be in the mountains of Afghanistan.

“I'm ready,” he said. “I always wanted to be an Army guy.”