Stories

Name: Nate Wilhelms

Age: 24

Hometown: Fond du Lac, Wis.

Military Rank/Unit: Specialist with the Wisconsin Army National Guard 2-127th Battalion/fourth-year cadet ROTC program

Tours: August 2005-August 2006, Safwan, Iraq

NATE WILHELMS

By Katie Holliday

Casualty of War

At 17, Nate Wilhelms decided to join the military to, as he says, "be a part of something bigger." He signed up for the Wisconsin Army National Guard in 2002, and in August 2005, Wilhelms’ unit, Charlie Company 2nd 127th Light Infantry Separate Infantry Battalion, deployed to Safwan, Iraq, which is at the border of Kuwait and Iraq. His job was to provide convoy security. A little over a month after arriving in Iraq, Wilhelms learned firsthand the vagaries of war.

You’re always worried. What's gonna happen today? Is this my last mission? Two days after my 21st birthday, a buddy of mine was killed. His name was Sgt. Andrew Wallace. It hits you. It was like a coin flip almost, how the night before the mission we were sitting there, and we were both approached about a mission. Our team leaders talked to us about it…

The rest of the story can be found in the book War: Through Their Eyes, which is sold at the University Books & More.

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