Three students return from Iraq
By Nick Ellerbrock
IV Leader Staff, May 6, 2004
After serving for a little over a year in Iraq, three IVCC students returned home to a crowd of family and friends awaiting them on April16.
Angela Pippin of Peru, Wesley Pender of Ottawa, and Tom Gray of Granville, all with the 300th Quartermaster Company, were called to service in early 2003. As a result, classes here at IVCC had to be put on hold.
“It delayed everything [academics] by almost two years,” Pippin said.
Pippin, a nursing major, plans to restart classes here at the college this summer, and Pender, a criminology major, is undecided if he will restart classes in the summer or wait for the fall semester. Gray was unavailable for comment at press time.
While in Iraq, the 300th Quartermaster Company ran a fuel point for an entire camp and some convoys passing through.
“Everyone who needed fuel came to us,” Pippin said.
Both Pippin, 28, and Pender, 22, were happy to be back with their families, especially Pippin, who left behind two children, Breanna, 8, and Brandon, 6, when she was called to serve.
“That was the roughest thing for me — knowing I was missing a whole year of their lives while I was there,” Pippin said to a NewsTribune
reporter.
When asked how the experience affected her, she responded:
“Being away so long, it makes you appreciate things more. You’re more aware of what happens in the world, and you appreciate family and friends more, too.”
Pippin and the other soldiers were greeted by friends and family on their return.