thedrifter
12-25-08, 06:39 AM
December 25, 2008
A bigger team — Ex-Bulldogs now in military, and enjoy it
By Tim Robinson
DAILY PRESS & ARGUS
BRIGHTON — Five years ago, they were teammates on the Brighton hockey team.
Today, Jeff Wiley, Mike Boosey and Aaron Gidcomb wear different uniforms, having joined the military over the summer.
Wiley is in the Army, Boosey in the Marines and Gidcomb in the Army National Guard.
Their roads to military service are roughly the same: A couple of years in college, then the choice to join the military while completing their college careers.
All three were home recently to reconnect with family and friends before beginning the next phase of their military careers. Wiley and Gidcomb are home until New Year's, while Boosey reported to the Marine base at Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Dec. 16.
"I don't remember three guys going into the military at the same time," said Paul Moggach, who coached all of them on the Bulldogs squad. "It's pretty unique to have three go into the service at the same time."
Here are their stories:
Mike Boosey went to Central Michigan University for three years after graduating. He stayed involved in hockey, helping coach the Brighton prep team for a while and worked on a degree in business.
"After a couple of years of that, I switched to biomed sciences," he said in a Dec. 14 interview at the Kensington Valley Ice House, the home of the Bulldogs. "General business wasn't for me. All that accounting and stuff you'll never use.
"I have 83 credit hours and I need 120 (to graduate,)" he said. "I had two years left and I couldn't really pay for it. I was going to (join the Marines) anyway, so I jumped in."
It was a matter of when for Boosey, who said he was inspired to join the military after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
"That was a huge catalyst," he said. "I was 14 then, and if I could have joined then, I would have. But I wasn't old enough."
The anti-war atmosphere at CMU, he said, also played a role.
"It was so liberal, just like college in general," he said. "Everything was war-bashing, and it's all these kids who would never do it. "Why would I want to join?" Why wouldn't you feel patriotism toward your country? I'll be straight — it ****ed me off. So I was like, I can't be like that. So I joined.
"I was going to do it right out of high school, but my parents were paying for school. They said they would be proud of me either way, but they wanted me to try a year of school, and a year turned into three. Now I'm back to the original plan."
Asked what he liked the most about the Marines, he laughs.
"You've got to save the most awesome stuff," he said. "Probably shooting. It takes a while to get to the rifle range, but once you get there you learn some neat things. You start firing from open sights from 500 yards. It's unreal. Unreal."
He joined in August, but his departure for basic training was delayed a week by Hurricane Hanna.
"Thirteen weeks in Paradise Island," he said, jokingly referring to Parris Island, S.C. "I swear, in one week it went from hot to cold. Windy, rainy every day. It sucked.
"You get there, and it's a culture shock," he continued. "It takes you by surprise. You're thrown into the mix. It's awesome, though. I won't lie, the first few weeks are tough, but you start doing some fun stuff."
Boosey said he was to find out soon which job he would have as a Marine.
"Whatever they're low on, they'll toss at you," he said. "The list is pretty good. I don't feel bad about it."
As for adjusting to military life, Boosey credited playing hockey — and his dad.
"My dad is a very disciplined guy," he said. "That helped a lot. He makes demands the Marine Corps wouldn't make. Any team you play for, any commitment you made, all of that helped."
Boosey will serve four years on active duty and four in the reserves.
"I know they call back a lot on your reserve time, so I'll probably be in for eight anyway," he said.
But he is quick to answer when asked about returning to school.
"I'm going to finish school," he said. "There's no doubt I'm going to finish school. It came to the Marines or college, and I wanted to get this out of the way first. There are a lot of options. There is the Montgomery GI bill, and the tuition assistance while you're in. You can use it per semester or per year. It was a really good option."
His enthusiasm at being a Marine is readily apparent.
"There's nothing better," he said. "I won't lie. I love it."
His enthusiasm on being a Marine spills out when asked how he got involved.
"I was going to serve my country," he said. "If you're going to do it, you should go all out. I don't want to rain on Jeff's parade, he's a Ranger, he's the best of the best, but he's a soldier. Let's put it that way: The Marines was the best fit for me."
He says this with a wry grin, as if talking about a hockey teammate who was now playing for another team.
As the interview concludes, Wiley arrives at the Ice House.
"Hey buddy, how's it going, man?" Boosey says as they hug.
"Do you have a hat?" Wiley asked, in full uniform, including a beret.
Boosey, wearing his dress uniform, sees a chance to needle his friend and runs with it.
"I'm indoors," he said. "I don't know what they teach you in the Army."
They laugh heartily.
Wiley graduated a year before Boosey, played junior hockey in Vermont for a year, went to Davenport University and played for that school's club team before attending Washtenaw Community College for a year. He joined the Army in late July and began basic training in Fort Benning, Ga., in August.
"It was warm," he said, laughing. "You sweat a little bit."
He entered a program that combined advanced infantry training and individual training at once, which lasted 14 weeks.
He goes to Airborne school at Fort Benning beginning Jan. 6, and then he'll report to Fort Bragg, about two hours west of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, to begin training in Special Forces, with an eye toward being a Green Beret.
"I go to selection there, and if I make it, I have about a year and a half of training after that. ... For Special Forces, the idea of going somewhere, and nobody knowing you were there, is intriguing."
He will spend five years on active duty and three years in reserve with an option to re-enlist after four years.
"They won't be saying no," he said, laughing.
As for his future, Wiley plans to go to school, but says things aren't settled beyond that.
"It depends on whether I make the Special Forces or not," he said. "I might stay in. I might make it a career. I might go back and go to school. I've only been in for (four) months. It's tough to say now, as opposed to four or five years down the road. I'll have a better idea, a little more time to think about it."
Wiley got home in early December and spent time working as a recruiter while savoring his time home.
"It's nice to see family," he said. "I just had a niece born on Nov. 3, and met her for the first time. I went to Old Navy and I was going to buy my dad a shirt (for Christmas). I didn't buy my dad anything. I bought my two nieces everything I could find. Everything in their size and I got them one in each color, too."
Basic training, with no cell phones or e-mail, was a mental challenge, he said.
"It's tough," he said. "You get letters and that's the only source of communication outside of the golden gates. The gates out of (Fort Benning). You go a couple days getting mail and then you have a day without it and you get a little empty feeling inside. But it wasn't too bad. Everyone was good about writing.
"You try and read (letters) in their voice and tell yourself, If this was a phone call, this is what it would sound like," he said.
But, like Boosey, the initial adjustment soon gave way to enthusiasm.
"You hate it at first and love it when you're done," he said. "Training has its good days and bad days, just like any job, really. It's an everyday kind of thing. It's hard at first because you don't understand everything and you're not adapted to it yet. Then, as it goes, it gets easier."
Since returning home, Wiley has been struck by the reactions he gets when he wears his uniform in public.
"I get a lot of thank-yous in public, especially in church and when I go out to breakfast (in uniform)," he said. "I guess it's nice to see that you're well-respected.
"People you don't even know are happy to see you. People you never thought would care that much are happy to see you. It's nice."
Boosey said that there were days when hockey practices could be every bit as tough as basic training. Wiley said that playing hockey helped him adjust to the Army.
"Absolutely," he said. "Playing hockey, you learn teamwork and you have a good basis for that. When you go into the Army, it's easy to be a leader when you're there. It's easy to work with others just to jell together as a team, because when you're with your platoon, the people you are with are all you have. It's easy to be come close to everyone that's there, especially when you've been doing it your whole life. There's a brotherhood for your hockey team, and the same for the military. It goes hand in hand."
As for joining the military, "I've always just wanted to do it," he said. "There's no rhyme or reason, really. It's just one of those things."
For Gidcomb, joining the National Guard was a natural complement to attending college.
"It gives me something else to do," he said. "I get to do the military, which I always wanted to do, and now I go back to school, so I feel like I'm doing two things I like doing now."
Gidcomb "bounced around," as he described it, during his college career. He started at Eastern Michigan University, and also attended Washtenaw Community College and Baker College.
He went to basic training in the Guard at the end of August.
"I had fun," he said. "I had all the pictures in my head where you watch war movies and they go through basic training and I thought, wow, this is going to be interesting. I got down there and it wasn't exactly what I expected. There was yelling and screaming at the beginning, but as you got further along, it got more and more fun. There was shooting the weapons and the training you got to do.
"I didn't think I was going to enjoy shooting all the weapons," he said. "I'd never shot the weapons, and I got there and I was having fun with it."
He also did well enough to earn an expert's badge for his marksmanship.
Gidcomb completes his training at Fort Lee, near Richmond, Va., in mid-January. He will then report to a National Guard post in Grand Ledge for his next assignment.
The Guard is a part-time job, requiring a weekend per month and two weeks in the summer, although Gidcomb is well aware it could become a more permanent commitment, depending on world events.
"It's always a thought in my head," he said. "If I have to go, how am I going to react? If I go, I go. I don't really have a choice in the matter. I'll do the best job I can, do my time and come back."
In the meantime, he plans to get a job and return to school in September, with about two years to go to finish his business degree.
He also plans to resume playing for his team in a men's league at the Ice House.
"That's the one thing I'm missing," he said. "The skating."
His experience on the Brighton hockey team, including long bus rides to the Upper Peninsula, helped him adjust to the National Guard, Gidcomb said.
"It did help prepare me," he said, "because if you made your coach mad, then you got skated. You already had the mental preparation. You just went along with it. I knew how to handle (basic training). Just keep your mouth shut and do as you're told.
"You just build a bond with those guys," he said. "Just like it was on the team, even when you were feeling down, the team helped you out. That's what the Army is. It's a team and like a family. Even those days when everyone was down, you were there for the other guys."
Asked what pushed him to join, Gidcomb, like his ex-teammates, struggled to find the words to describe the indescribable.
"It's hard to explain," he said.
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks helped shape his decision. "Seeing that and seeing everyone trying to help made me want to do something," he said, "to do my part in helping out in whatever's going on."
All three players made their marks on the Brighton hockey program.
Gidcomb was an all-state goalie as a senior and has the second-best career goals-against average (1.71) in school history.
Wiley had 48 goals and 92 points in three seasons, and Boosey was a key to the Bulldogs defense when he played.
All three played on Kensington Valley Conference champion teams throughout their high school careers.
"I'm proud of all of them for what they're doing," Moggach said. "I tell the guys on this year's team that most of them won't be going into the military, but there's a lot of discipline in playing on a team. When I think of these three going into the military, they're training not just to be soldiers, but also to be men."
Their high school hockey days long gone, Jeff Wiley, Mike Boosey and Aaron Gidcomb begin their careers as part of a new team, with stakes much higher than any league championship.
They go in clear-eyed, enthusiastic and ready to face whatever awaits, as family and friends simultaneously cheer them on while saying silent prayers for their safe return.
Ellie
A bigger team — Ex-Bulldogs now in military, and enjoy it
By Tim Robinson
DAILY PRESS & ARGUS
BRIGHTON — Five years ago, they were teammates on the Brighton hockey team.
Today, Jeff Wiley, Mike Boosey and Aaron Gidcomb wear different uniforms, having joined the military over the summer.
Wiley is in the Army, Boosey in the Marines and Gidcomb in the Army National Guard.
Their roads to military service are roughly the same: A couple of years in college, then the choice to join the military while completing their college careers.
All three were home recently to reconnect with family and friends before beginning the next phase of their military careers. Wiley and Gidcomb are home until New Year's, while Boosey reported to the Marine base at Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Dec. 16.
"I don't remember three guys going into the military at the same time," said Paul Moggach, who coached all of them on the Bulldogs squad. "It's pretty unique to have three go into the service at the same time."
Here are their stories:
Mike Boosey went to Central Michigan University for three years after graduating. He stayed involved in hockey, helping coach the Brighton prep team for a while and worked on a degree in business.
"After a couple of years of that, I switched to biomed sciences," he said in a Dec. 14 interview at the Kensington Valley Ice House, the home of the Bulldogs. "General business wasn't for me. All that accounting and stuff you'll never use.
"I have 83 credit hours and I need 120 (to graduate,)" he said. "I had two years left and I couldn't really pay for it. I was going to (join the Marines) anyway, so I jumped in."
It was a matter of when for Boosey, who said he was inspired to join the military after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
"That was a huge catalyst," he said. "I was 14 then, and if I could have joined then, I would have. But I wasn't old enough."
The anti-war atmosphere at CMU, he said, also played a role.
"It was so liberal, just like college in general," he said. "Everything was war-bashing, and it's all these kids who would never do it. "Why would I want to join?" Why wouldn't you feel patriotism toward your country? I'll be straight — it ****ed me off. So I was like, I can't be like that. So I joined.
"I was going to do it right out of high school, but my parents were paying for school. They said they would be proud of me either way, but they wanted me to try a year of school, and a year turned into three. Now I'm back to the original plan."
Asked what he liked the most about the Marines, he laughs.
"You've got to save the most awesome stuff," he said. "Probably shooting. It takes a while to get to the rifle range, but once you get there you learn some neat things. You start firing from open sights from 500 yards. It's unreal. Unreal."
He joined in August, but his departure for basic training was delayed a week by Hurricane Hanna.
"Thirteen weeks in Paradise Island," he said, jokingly referring to Parris Island, S.C. "I swear, in one week it went from hot to cold. Windy, rainy every day. It sucked.
"You get there, and it's a culture shock," he continued. "It takes you by surprise. You're thrown into the mix. It's awesome, though. I won't lie, the first few weeks are tough, but you start doing some fun stuff."
Boosey said he was to find out soon which job he would have as a Marine.
"Whatever they're low on, they'll toss at you," he said. "The list is pretty good. I don't feel bad about it."
As for adjusting to military life, Boosey credited playing hockey — and his dad.
"My dad is a very disciplined guy," he said. "That helped a lot. He makes demands the Marine Corps wouldn't make. Any team you play for, any commitment you made, all of that helped."
Boosey will serve four years on active duty and four in the reserves.
"I know they call back a lot on your reserve time, so I'll probably be in for eight anyway," he said.
But he is quick to answer when asked about returning to school.
"I'm going to finish school," he said. "There's no doubt I'm going to finish school. It came to the Marines or college, and I wanted to get this out of the way first. There are a lot of options. There is the Montgomery GI bill, and the tuition assistance while you're in. You can use it per semester or per year. It was a really good option."
His enthusiasm at being a Marine is readily apparent.
"There's nothing better," he said. "I won't lie. I love it."
His enthusiasm on being a Marine spills out when asked how he got involved.
"I was going to serve my country," he said. "If you're going to do it, you should go all out. I don't want to rain on Jeff's parade, he's a Ranger, he's the best of the best, but he's a soldier. Let's put it that way: The Marines was the best fit for me."
He says this with a wry grin, as if talking about a hockey teammate who was now playing for another team.
As the interview concludes, Wiley arrives at the Ice House.
"Hey buddy, how's it going, man?" Boosey says as they hug.
"Do you have a hat?" Wiley asked, in full uniform, including a beret.
Boosey, wearing his dress uniform, sees a chance to needle his friend and runs with it.
"I'm indoors," he said. "I don't know what they teach you in the Army."
They laugh heartily.
Wiley graduated a year before Boosey, played junior hockey in Vermont for a year, went to Davenport University and played for that school's club team before attending Washtenaw Community College for a year. He joined the Army in late July and began basic training in Fort Benning, Ga., in August.
"It was warm," he said, laughing. "You sweat a little bit."
He entered a program that combined advanced infantry training and individual training at once, which lasted 14 weeks.
He goes to Airborne school at Fort Benning beginning Jan. 6, and then he'll report to Fort Bragg, about two hours west of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, to begin training in Special Forces, with an eye toward being a Green Beret.
"I go to selection there, and if I make it, I have about a year and a half of training after that. ... For Special Forces, the idea of going somewhere, and nobody knowing you were there, is intriguing."
He will spend five years on active duty and three years in reserve with an option to re-enlist after four years.
"They won't be saying no," he said, laughing.
As for his future, Wiley plans to go to school, but says things aren't settled beyond that.
"It depends on whether I make the Special Forces or not," he said. "I might stay in. I might make it a career. I might go back and go to school. I've only been in for (four) months. It's tough to say now, as opposed to four or five years down the road. I'll have a better idea, a little more time to think about it."
Wiley got home in early December and spent time working as a recruiter while savoring his time home.
"It's nice to see family," he said. "I just had a niece born on Nov. 3, and met her for the first time. I went to Old Navy and I was going to buy my dad a shirt (for Christmas). I didn't buy my dad anything. I bought my two nieces everything I could find. Everything in their size and I got them one in each color, too."
Basic training, with no cell phones or e-mail, was a mental challenge, he said.
"It's tough," he said. "You get letters and that's the only source of communication outside of the golden gates. The gates out of (Fort Benning). You go a couple days getting mail and then you have a day without it and you get a little empty feeling inside. But it wasn't too bad. Everyone was good about writing.
"You try and read (letters) in their voice and tell yourself, If this was a phone call, this is what it would sound like," he said.
But, like Boosey, the initial adjustment soon gave way to enthusiasm.
"You hate it at first and love it when you're done," he said. "Training has its good days and bad days, just like any job, really. It's an everyday kind of thing. It's hard at first because you don't understand everything and you're not adapted to it yet. Then, as it goes, it gets easier."
Since returning home, Wiley has been struck by the reactions he gets when he wears his uniform in public.
"I get a lot of thank-yous in public, especially in church and when I go out to breakfast (in uniform)," he said. "I guess it's nice to see that you're well-respected.
"People you don't even know are happy to see you. People you never thought would care that much are happy to see you. It's nice."
Boosey said that there were days when hockey practices could be every bit as tough as basic training. Wiley said that playing hockey helped him adjust to the Army.
"Absolutely," he said. "Playing hockey, you learn teamwork and you have a good basis for that. When you go into the Army, it's easy to be a leader when you're there. It's easy to work with others just to jell together as a team, because when you're with your platoon, the people you are with are all you have. It's easy to be come close to everyone that's there, especially when you've been doing it your whole life. There's a brotherhood for your hockey team, and the same for the military. It goes hand in hand."
As for joining the military, "I've always just wanted to do it," he said. "There's no rhyme or reason, really. It's just one of those things."
For Gidcomb, joining the National Guard was a natural complement to attending college.
"It gives me something else to do," he said. "I get to do the military, which I always wanted to do, and now I go back to school, so I feel like I'm doing two things I like doing now."
Gidcomb "bounced around," as he described it, during his college career. He started at Eastern Michigan University, and also attended Washtenaw Community College and Baker College.
He went to basic training in the Guard at the end of August.
"I had fun," he said. "I had all the pictures in my head where you watch war movies and they go through basic training and I thought, wow, this is going to be interesting. I got down there and it wasn't exactly what I expected. There was yelling and screaming at the beginning, but as you got further along, it got more and more fun. There was shooting the weapons and the training you got to do.
"I didn't think I was going to enjoy shooting all the weapons," he said. "I'd never shot the weapons, and I got there and I was having fun with it."
He also did well enough to earn an expert's badge for his marksmanship.
Gidcomb completes his training at Fort Lee, near Richmond, Va., in mid-January. He will then report to a National Guard post in Grand Ledge for his next assignment.
The Guard is a part-time job, requiring a weekend per month and two weeks in the summer, although Gidcomb is well aware it could become a more permanent commitment, depending on world events.
"It's always a thought in my head," he said. "If I have to go, how am I going to react? If I go, I go. I don't really have a choice in the matter. I'll do the best job I can, do my time and come back."
In the meantime, he plans to get a job and return to school in September, with about two years to go to finish his business degree.
He also plans to resume playing for his team in a men's league at the Ice House.
"That's the one thing I'm missing," he said. "The skating."
His experience on the Brighton hockey team, including long bus rides to the Upper Peninsula, helped him adjust to the National Guard, Gidcomb said.
"It did help prepare me," he said, "because if you made your coach mad, then you got skated. You already had the mental preparation. You just went along with it. I knew how to handle (basic training). Just keep your mouth shut and do as you're told.
"You just build a bond with those guys," he said. "Just like it was on the team, even when you were feeling down, the team helped you out. That's what the Army is. It's a team and like a family. Even those days when everyone was down, you were there for the other guys."
Asked what pushed him to join, Gidcomb, like his ex-teammates, struggled to find the words to describe the indescribable.
"It's hard to explain," he said.
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks helped shape his decision. "Seeing that and seeing everyone trying to help made me want to do something," he said, "to do my part in helping out in whatever's going on."
All three players made their marks on the Brighton hockey program.
Gidcomb was an all-state goalie as a senior and has the second-best career goals-against average (1.71) in school history.
Wiley had 48 goals and 92 points in three seasons, and Boosey was a key to the Bulldogs defense when he played.
All three played on Kensington Valley Conference champion teams throughout their high school careers.
"I'm proud of all of them for what they're doing," Moggach said. "I tell the guys on this year's team that most of them won't be going into the military, but there's a lot of discipline in playing on a team. When I think of these three going into the military, they're training not just to be soldiers, but also to be men."
Their high school hockey days long gone, Jeff Wiley, Mike Boosey and Aaron Gidcomb begin their careers as part of a new team, with stakes much higher than any league championship.
They go in clear-eyed, enthusiastic and ready to face whatever awaits, as family and friends simultaneously cheer them on while saying silent prayers for their safe return.
Ellie