Mount Si grad returns from Middle East

Published 10:25 am Thursday, October 2, 2008

Carnation resident Marc Vilsmeyer, typically a reserved man, cannot watch a particular U.S. Army commercial without getting emotional.

The scene is as follows: A father picks his 20-something son up at a train station. It’s implied that the son is seeing his father for the first time since his military training. The father tells the son that he has changed. When asked for explanation, the obviously proud and misty-eyed father says that when his son got off the train, “You did two things you’ve never done before, at least not at the same time. You shook my hand – and you looked me square in the eye.”

For Marc, that epitomizes his own relationship with his son Luke, who joined the Army six years ago and has since fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Luke has a younger brother and sister, both in their early 20s.

“The first time he came home from leave, he asked what he could do around the house,” Marc said. “Boys don’t typically do that. Before, he was a good kid, but he wasn’t this adult and he came back and he was this full-fledged adult.”

Graduating from Mount Si High School in 1998, Luke spent two years as an apprentice carpenter before deciding to join the army. .

“There are a million reasons I wanted to join,” said Luke, 26, who is on-leave from his station in Italy until the end of April. “I always looked up to someone who put it all on the line for our country. I grew up in a great country and I felt like I wanted to give back to it.”

Luke and his wife, Naomi, spent 2000-2003 at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where Luke received his training. When he re-enlisted in 2003, he chose to be stationed in Italy.

The couple moved in August 2003.

“Two weeks later I was in Iraq,” Luke said. “I got off the plane; it was hot, it stunk and I got to work.”

He stayed for about seven months in the area of Kukruk serving as a Sgt. (E-5).

After seeing combat for seven months in Iraq, Luke went on leave; on March 3, 2005, he was deployed to Afghanistan for a year.

He returned to Italy this March, spending the first half of April on vacation in Thailand with Naomi is now visiting locally with family and friends until the end of April, before returning to Italy.

“Afghanistan was very different than Iraq,” he said. “In Iraq, we’re trying to help their government, their people. In Afghanistan, it was straight-up fighting. I’m not very good with politics, but with the stuff I’ve seen on the ground, I see a need to be [in Iraq] because they need help. I know we also belong in Afghanistan, but its two completely different situations.”

The soldiers in Afghanistan notice that more attention is paid to the combat in Iraq,though it doesn’t affect their fighting Luke noted.

They call their fight “the forgotten war.”

“We saw more combat in Afghanistan than we did in Iraq,” Luke said. “The news is completely different than what’s going on. The only thing they [the media] want to report is the bad stuff. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion and both sides have their points; the only thing I can say is I’ve been there on the ground and I’ve seen it.”

His mother noted she is eager to support the ones who are actually doing the fighting.

“The thing is, we’re soldiers,” Luke said. “Soldiers do what they are told. We don’t go over there because we want to, we go because we’re told. You can talk politics and leave my guys out of it.”

Promoted to Staff Sgt. before traveling to Afghanistan, Luke controlled a seven-man section in Afghanistan. He lived with his soldiers in a mud hut, killed a number of camel spiders in the night, slept in his downtime and sometimes spent a month without fighting, just waiting because “eventually it would start up again.”

“The only thing that surprised me was how much we were not fighting, ” he said.

“You become more of yourself because as a soldier and as a leader, you’re in it all the way. You become yourself, actually, because it’s not coming to work 9-5; you’re with them all the way,” he added.

His parents note that since their son joined the Army, he still has the same laugh though, they are proud of how his character has developed.

“He was always just one of those kids who would stand up for the littler ones,” Marc said. “All I can say is that I’m proud of the man he’s become.”

Luke, who won “Soldier of the Year in Core Artillery” in 2002 and played on the 2001 undefeated all-Army soccer team, is humble about his involvement.

“I do my job so everyone else can do their job,” he said. “The greatest thing someone can do for me is straight-up shake my hand. I have my awards, but my guys deserve all of them.”

Luke said that it has been somewhat of a transition between the intensity of combat and the temporary normalcy of non-military life.

The war never really goes away, but it becomes easier, he noted, adding that he tries not to think about it when he is on leave.

“You’re there and then you’re not,” he noted. “It’s so hard to explain. I don’t ever try to sit and explain it to people who haven’t been there because you can’t. There are so many factors.”

Luke said he plans on being with the army long-term and would even like to return to combat as long as the U.S. remains at war..

“That’s what I am trained to do, I might as well do it,” he said.

He is scheduled to be stationed in Italy for three more years, but he would like for he and Naomi to move Washington state in the future.