The Emporia Gazette

February 14, 2012

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Sigma Tau Gamma now has its own expeditionary force.

Four members of the Emporia State University fraternity will soon be shipping out to serve in Iraq with the Army National Guard. Sgt. Matt Nordquist, Spc. Dylan Richardson and Spec. Adam Schuetz will move out June 1. The fourth, Pfc. Jonathan Lofgren, is actually leaving May 7 so he can go through condensed basic training — he’s a transfer from the Air Force.

“Being with these guys makes it easier,” Lofgren said. “In the Air Force, they were just people I worked with. This is a lot more like family.”

All four will be gone for at least a year. When there are 38 brothers in the fraternity, that leaves a hole. It also means that graduation gets pushed off still farther. Nordquist, for example, was supposed to get his degree this winter while Richardson would have graduated in fall of 2008.

But that didn’t stop any of the Sigma soldiers from volunteering to go when the call came.

“If you volunteer, you’re keeping somebody with a wife and kid, someone with real responsibilities, from getting deployed,” Richardson said.

The first hints came just after spring break. Word spread that a “mandatory formation” had been called for the 1st Battalion, 635th Armored Regiment. That meant some sort of big announcement. And it didn’t take long to piece together what it would be.

“Schuetz called me when I was in class and said ‘We’re going over!’” Richardson said. “He was so excited. I was like ‘Wait! Calm down.’”

Only a set number of troops were being deployed — for security reasons, the Guard won’t say how many — so the unit asked for volunteers before it started making mandatory call ups. In the end, 95 percent of the soldiers who were needed volunteered.

That included Nordquist, even though he had to transfer from another Army National Guard unit to do it. He wasn’t about to leave his friends behind.

“Once I heard they were going, I volunteered to switch units and go over with them,” he said.

As it happens, they won’t be the only Sigma Taus with Emporia connections to head over. They’ll be joined by Brian Bartlett, a fraternity alumnus, who is now finishing his ESU degree through a “two plus two” program with Johnson County Community College. His wedding was planned for July, but he married on Saturday instead so he could tie the knot before deploying.

Having this many fraternity brothers in close contact does make a difference, the guys agreed.

“I think it’s a big trust thing,” Schuetz said. “You know these guys because you’ve lived with them.”

“When you spend a year together with anyone, you’re going to start rubbing each other the wrong way,” Richardson said. “If you’ve got guys who have lived with each other, it makes it easier.”

None of the four is overly worried about going into a combat situation — it is, after all, what they signed up for when they took the uniform. And when they return, their GI Bill increases to more than $1,000 a month. Schuetz is already planning on house-hunting when he gets back.

Instead of combat, the conversation drifts to other subjects. Things like Iraqi camel spiders or the chance to see a new part of the world or even whether this could become a career.

“It’s not a bad life,” said Richardson, who’s thinking of staying in the military. “But this is a good opportunity to see what that life’s like. Do I fit in? ... The thing that I’m worried about, going over there, is that three months into it, I’ll start hating it and the deployment will drag on.”

For now, though, the band of brothers is ready. Who knows? They might even wind up starting a new chapter.

“If we get our own place, maybe we can put Sigma Tau above the door,” Nordquist said with a grin. “That’s where all the parties will be.”

“With no beer,” Schuetz added.