Have you ever thought about how different a farming lifestyle is from a corporate job? It’s actually quite a bit different other than just being your own boss (which is nice). There are a lot of ups and downs to the process of switching jobs and I was grateful to have two family members who have gone through this change. My father and my grandfather both switched from a corporate job to full time farming.
Harvest 2008. Photo taken by Berta Raymond
When it was time for my great-grandfather to retire, my grandfather had to make a decision about leaving his job at Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois to take over the family farm. He grew up around farming and helped his father farm so it wasn’t anything new to him at the time. He was stuck between taking a pay-cut with farming and raising his kids in a big city. Ultimately, he made the decision to take the pay-cut and loss of benefits to start farming. This way his children (my mother) would be raised on the farm.
The decision to do this led to many changes in my grandfather’s life. A major difference was the fact that he was now his own boss, which is a good and a bad thing. When I asked him about it he replied, “More ambition is needed and self discipline is important.”
Harvest 2020. Photo taken by Brittini Chapman
My father also made this decision to leave an upper management job to take over his father-in-law’s farm. My father had 22 years of corporate experience consisting of managing the Farm Progress Show, grain originator for Continental Grain, and River Terminal Operations and Development for SCH Terminal Co. Inc. He also grew up farming and had a large interest so it was an easy decision for him to switch jobs. We originally moved to Kentucky for his corporate job. When we moved back to the family farm area, we were actually re-locating to our home town.
My father grew up farming and enjoys it. When my dad started to farm, it introduced me to agriculture and it really peaked my interest. He described farming as “Your failures and accomplishments are a result of your own work, nobody else.” So essentially what he means is that you get back what you put in. There is nobody who can do your job for you if you are sick or just feel like taking a personal day. “You can’t get fired if you have no boss.”
Harvest 2020. My Dad and I with his father in the tractor. Photo taken by Brittini Chapman.
Both my father and my grandfather list similar differences between farming and corporate life. Some of these are personal budgeting, more insight into upper-management business decisions, and having ambition and the desire to make a living. What matters is that you are happy in what you are doing in the long run!
Hello everyone. My name is Brice Chapman. I am a Senior majoring in Ag Business. I plan to graduate December 2021. My future plans include securing a job in the Ag industry hopefully local to continue working on the family farm.
Having grown up on our grain and livestock farm, it has always been my intention to return home to farm alongside my dad. I have helped my dad on the farm from a very young age and am still home during crucial parts of the farming season. I have always had an active role in the farming operation – from decision making to planting to harvesting. I feel very fortunate to have gained the experience that I have throughout the past several years. Farming has been an integral part of my life.
Chisel plowing at age 10
Proudly, I will be the 7th generation farmer in the Ryner family. The Ryner family began farming in the rural Monmouth area in 1840. In 1840, Jacob Ryner settled in Section 1 of the Monmouth Township outside of Monmouth, Illinois, from the state of Pennsylvania. Jacob began farming eighty acres which was given to him and his wife by the government for homesteading purposes near the edge of a timber. That homesteaded acreage was passed down to Jacob’s son after his death in 1863. His son Jacob continued to farm that acreage and raise livestock through his death in 1890. My great-great-grandfather Warren Ryner was able to expand that acreage to 100 acres which labeled him as a prosperous farmer. During the 1950s, my great-grandfather Dale Ryner was able to expand the land he owned to 420 acres as farmers were entering an era of profit.
Section 23, Spring Grove Township. The first farm purchased by a Ryner. Currently the main farm of Ryner Farms.
My grandfather John’s farming operation was increased to 1500 acres during his most profitable years of farming, the late 1970s and 1980s. The late 1980s and early 1990s were hard on farmers as they felt the repercussions of a drought. With no federal crop insurance during the drought, farmers hit an all time low. Interest rates rose to 18% while yields were very low. In the mid 1990s, corn hit nearly $5/bushel and farming was becoming profitable again. My grandfather said that one day in the summer of 1996, my dad showed up to the farm and said, “I’ve decided I want to come home and farm”. This was music to my grandpa’s ears as he was afraid that none of his three sons would show interest in the family farm. With the addition of my dad to the family farm, Ryner Farms would soon buy and rent enough farm ground to reach the 3100 acres that we currently farm.
Harvest – September 2020
While most of the attention in agriculture is given to the large corporations, family farms are crucial to agriculture. Keeping families on the farm will secure that land in the community. Small family farms are essential in the growth of local economies as they use small companies for the purchase of goods and services.
The ability to pass down the ancestral family farm from generation to generation is something that has always been important to my family. It’s a topic of conversation at every large family gathering. Stories are told in which I have learned a lot about the farmers before me. Because my family has been able to work together to build the farm, we hope to continue to be at an advantage. We hope that we can continue to diversify the farming operation and to continue to expand the amount of ground we farm.
For the past 180 years, the men in my family have worked hard to preserve the family farm. Knowing that I will return to farm this ground upon graduating from WIU is very humbling. Agriculture has always been something I have been passionate about, so I am very excited to be able to carry on the family tradition of farming. I know the importance of this land to my family and plan to preserve it to the best of my ability. I hope to continue to pass it down to future generations.
“Our deep respect for the land and its harvest is the legacy of generations of farmers who put food on our tables, preserved our landscape, and inspired us with a powerful work ethic. “
-James H. Douglas (American politician)
About the Author I’m Blake Ryner from Alexis, Illinois. I am a sophomore majoring in Ag Business. I grew up on our grain and livestock farm and was active in 4H and FFA. I have traveled across the country showing livestock for ten years. Upon graduation, I plan to return home to farm.
When it comes to agriculture, many people do not think of seed corn production. A lot of people don’t even realize it is a thing when somebody mentions agriculture. People that grew up on a farm or run a farm operation may know where their seed comes from but don’t understand the ins and outs of the complex industry. The seed industry is very competitive and you realistically only have one shot to get everything right to produce a seed that is certified to sell. The main idea of is to take two inbreds and make a hybrid. The hybrid that has been produced will then be produced, bagged, and sold to farmers to be planted and sold for commodity.
For those that do not know the basics to seed corn production, you plant four female rows that will have one male row on either side for pollination. This can be very confusing for someone driving by a field because the female produces a tassel just like the male even though a male plant has many different characteristics than a female plant. Therefore, there are many obstacles you must consider to make sure that pollination is happening at the right time. To break it down, you want the female to be producing silk while the male is shedding pollen. The silk will catch the male pollen and create the intended hybrid. However, there are many things to worry about when it comes to this process. One of the questions is, what if you get cross pollination?
This picture is showing the difference between male and fertile plants. You mark the male plants with orange and the fertile plants with white. This is done so there will be no confusion when cutting, pulling, or harvesting the crop.
Cross pollination can come from many things. The two main cross pollinations you want to avoid are pollen from a neighboring field and pollen from the female plant. The main solution to avoid cross pollination from a neighboring field is by planting the recommended amount of buffer zone. This is where you plant 16 rows of male along the field border to catch any pollen from unintended plants and supply extra pollen to the intended female plant. The other cross pollination is female pollen being spread across the field and creating the unintended hybrid. There are many different ways to avoid this problem. The most popular is to detassel a fertile female field. This can be a lengthy process, first you must send a cutter though that will cut the tops off the fertile female tassel. After the cutter has gone through the field, you must send a wheel puller through the field to pull the female tassels. Lastly, you have to send a hand crew through to pull the remaining tassels. Other ideas introduced into the industry have been sterile female plants and a Roundup Hybridization System (RHS) hybrid. Essentially the sterile female plant should not produce a tassel that will shed and affect the process. RHS is a little more complex due to the newness of the technology. To make things simple, you spray glyphosate on the female plant and it sterilizes the tassels. With both these processes, there is no need for hand crews.
Outside of all those factors, what else do you have to worry about? Volunteering, rouges, and stand counts are just a few of the factors to worry about. Volunteer corn is best described as corn that was left behind in the field from the previous year. One of the ways this happens is that corn that didn’t make it through the harvester. Rouges are seeds that made it into the male seed bags and happened to be planted. If these do not get removed in the field, the female plants that get pollinated by rogues will have very different ears when going through the husk sort building. These ears that have been pollinated by a rogue should be discarded. Lastly, stand counts; this is one of the most important steps early in the summer. You are checking to see if there is uniform growth in the field. You want uniform growth so all the female plants are accepting the pollen from the intended male plant at the right time. Also you are checking to make sure the male is not far behind or ahead of the female plant.
I am looking at the stages between the male and female plants. Trying to predict if they will be silking and pollinating at the same time period.
This summer I got the opportunity to experience all of what I have mentioned with my internship with AgReliant. I had a great supporting cast that helped me understand the process of summer operations for seed corn production. To name a few that helped me this summer, Jake Soehn (WIU Alumni), Trenton Hopper (WIU Alumni), Cody Luanda, and Patrick McCoy. I got a chance to speak to my mentor from this summer, Patrick McCoy. He has more than 20 years of experience in the seed corn industry. He is the one of the main field guys for AgReliant in the central Illinois area. Rough around the edges at first, he is truly someone that you will love working with. He is very detailed, hard working, and a great mentor. Therefore, I knew I had to ask him these few questions about the past and future of seed corn production.
How has seed corn production changed in the last 10 years?
“RHS. When you have RHS, there are no kids detasseling to worry about. Instead, you spray it.“
What do you see changing in the future?
“There will be an endless array of seed treatments that will be put on.”
I had a chance to study RHS hybrids as my special project for the summer. Pat and I worked many hours studying the habits and traits of the RHS hybrid fields. This could be the future of seed corn production as there are many things concerning the industry such as purity, hours of labor, and cleanness of fields. Like mentioned earlier, you do not have to wheel pull RHS. This is the most time consuming factor of seed corn, also you must have a percentage of tassels removed to not affect purity of the seed that is being produced. Aside from my special project this summer, I got the chance to study many summer projects. Some of those were delaying growth stages, variable rate for seed population, and weed management. When I was first offered this internship, I was unsure if I really wanted to do this. I am glad that I did, I gained knowledge in many different areas of agronomy that I figured I would not have learned from seed corn production. I am thankful for the people I meet this summer and happy with my decision, that is why I will always encourage someone to do a summer internship.
About The Author
Hi everyone, my name is Tanner Payne. I am a senior majoring in Agriculture Science with a minor in Agronomy. I am from Table Grove, IL. After graduation in May, I plan on pursuing a job in agriculture, specifically in agronomy until I am able to farm someday. Thank you for reading!
Some people are born into agriculture. Some people are raised in agriculture. Some people, like me, don’t have an agriculture background. I’ve had limited experience with gardens and house plants. My family never lived or worked on a farm. However,I took an interest in agriculture from the restaurants I worked for and hobbies that resulted in me becoming a student in agriculture.
Some of our cut-comb honey at a grocery store
My interest in agriculture came at a surprising time. I was about 20 years old working as a host at The Patio in Quincy. One night when I was getting off work a patron asked if I would be interested in doing some landscape work for him. I told him I had very little experience in landscape work, but he hired me anyway.
After a few years of doing freelance landscape work, I decided that I enjoyed working with plants a lot. It was at this same time that my fiance and her father decided to take up beekeeping as a hobby. I also decided to get my associates while working at a farm-to-table restaurant. This arrangement sparked my interest in local farms and some misinformation about how farms are handled in America.
As I progressed in my education, our bee hobby became a full-on honey operation. We went from having five hives to having nearly 100. We started to get into different crops we can plant to promote pollinator insect health, and I was learning on how to draw in potential customers for our fledgling business. This was when I decided to apply at WIU to get a degree in agriculture.
“It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn.”-B.C. Forbes
I started WIU in the fall of 2019 with minimal knowledge on agriculture than most of my peers. It was a rough adjustment, especially with having to commute back and forth everyday. However, as the first semester progressed, I began to understand more about agriculture and how important of a science it is.
Honestly, if you would have asked me five years ago where I would see myself in five years, I would have never said going back to school to learn about agriculture. I spent my entire working life in the restaurant business, and I figured that would be where I stay for the rest of my life. Luckily, I was wrong and I’m happy I was because I know this is the field for me.
Hello, my name is Philip Fulmer. I am currently a senior majoring in Agriculture Science. I have spent the last two years learning hands-on nursery care at Frese Ornamental in Quincy, Illinois. Along with going to WIU full-time, I also work and have many hives to look after year round. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.
Every year thousands of young people throughout the United States begin the search for the best of the best in livestock potential. They travel miles to visit farms and attend livestock breeders’ sales; they spend hours on the internet staring at screen shots of animals that might be their ticket to a blue ribbon. In this process, the financial cycle of buying and selling an animal, seeking the best feed and supplement, obtaining the equipment, and finding the transportation to get to the shows all contribute to the impact the livestock show industry has on our country’s economy. With the unfortunate arrival of Covid-19 this last spring, literally hundreds of local fairs, livestock competitions, and state fairs were cancelled. Even big shows like Denver and Ft Worth in the coming year saw fit to cancel, long before they were to take place. It is frightening to think what this has done to both the economies of these cities as well as the livestock industry itself.
An important part of my life and the lives of many in agriculture has revolved around these livestock shows. The breeders who put in the time, money, and work to raise superior quality animals thrive on the sale of their animals to these young people. The 4-H projects dominate the lives of these exhibitors throughout the year. They work incredibly hard, feeding, grooming and training their animals. The responsibility and work ethic formed in the process is difficult to gain anywhere else. The family time and relationships are integral to the raising of livestock. An eight year old has to have help as he or she buys, trains, and keeps records on the animals so a family member must invest in the project as well. As the young person gains more experience, valuable lessons are learned as he or she takes over the project. All of these aspects of exhibiting livestock at the shows are intrinsic to the process and have vanished over the last summer for many.
“Our industry will be able to look back and recall how they witnessed, first-hand, how to handle adversity.”
Katie Hoge
As shows have been cancelled, leaders and local farmers in the livestock business have scrambled to replace the shows with ones that might pass Covid-19 restrictions. However, even those shows have been hampered by limiting the number of animals, the number of spectators, and the amount of prize money. Some of my fondest memories are of having family members in the audience, sharing picnic style lunches in the barns with friends, and making memories with other exhibitors. With the restrictions on all of those activities, so much has been lost.
Photo By: Lindsey Hanewich
The politics of Covid-19 has sometimes overtaken common sense. Acknowledging the reality of the virus is one thing; allowing it to dominate our lives is quite another. I am much more fearful for where this has taken the country and the damage that has been done to its people than I am of the virus itself. I can only hope that the future will allow those without fear to come forward and rebuild what for many in the livestock industry has been a very sad year.
Meet the Author
Taken By: Tessa Richie
Hello everyone, my name is Tucker Schlipf from El Paso, Illinois. I am currently a senior at Western Illinois University pursuing a Bachelor in Ag Science. My future plans involve finding a job in the cattle industry where I can give back to the industry that has provided so much to my family and I. Thank you for everyone who took the time to read my blog.
The early mornings before work, long hours during the day and night, and busy weekends are tiring and frustrating, but so rewarding.
There is nothing comparable to getting a breath of fresh air every morning to rid your tiredness and ‘not wanting to do anything today’ attitude in the morning because it’s extremely early and cold. Something about getting to the farm in the morning and having the cows greet you at the gate, ready to eat puts a smile on your face.
Working long hours during the day and after work trying to get tasks done before weather comes in, the sun goes down, or because the project needs done. This year, my dad and I decided to rebuild and design our pens that would be more ideal for working and holding cows and calves. It has been a full year process with having to buy new panels, cut down hedge trees, and deciding how we want our pen set up with new gates and making it the most ideal for us. After figuring how we wanted our pens, it only took a few weeks to build and complete. In the past month, we finally were able to use our pens when separating cows from calves and weaning. To this day, it has been successful. We are able to sleep at night not having to worry if a calf has jumped the fence or if they are knee deep in mud. Such a relieving feeling.
One of my favorite things on the farm is raise bottle calves. Watching them grow up and play with each other is unbeatable. Picture by Katie Carter.
In the spring, where there is just a little frost on the ground, the air is crisp and refreshing, the grass is starting to green, and the new baby calves are running around playing together while the moms eat brings peace to the mind.
This is something I would much rather do than working in an office all day staring at a computer. Any chance I have to go see my cows and brush on my horse, I take the opportunity. Sometimes I get a little behind and frustrated in my school work, due to the constant pull of the time and energy it takes to feed and maintain the farm. There’s nothing like a fresh of breath air at the farm after zoom classes, since that is the new norm.
It’s tiring day after day, but getting your fence built, field mowed, or cows moved comes with a sigh of relief. I tell myself to keep dreaming and hopefully one of these days, my dreams will come true in all parts of my life. But for today, I am happy and content with my little farm and big family that surrounds me with nothing but love and support.
I wake up everyday with a smile on my face and do it again, until I can’t anymore.
Hello everyone! My name is Katie Carter and I am a junior at Western Illinois University. I am studying Agriculture Education. I am from Athens, Illinois. I hope to one day be an educator for agriculture and an FFA advisor. At Western, I am a part of the agriculture sorority Sigma Alpha and am actively involved in agronomy and horticulture club. Thank you for reading my blog. Stay safe and healthy.
In a world of unknown circumstances and constant changes the year of 2020 will always come to the top of the list for myself. The world of agriculture is constantly changing as well. One thing for sure is the dedication of the youth in the livestock industry was put to the test this summer.
This the beginning of march when word came out of shows starting to get canceled or postponed due to Covid-19 it was scary to most. As kids started turn that heifer out into he pasture with the other cows or quit washing that steer that they had big hopes of bringing home a purple banner with it lead to devastation not just for the owner but the parents and family that enjoys watching them show. This industry teaches kids that even when you are down and out or you get beat you never quit working because after all its only one judges opinion and everything can change the next day. The covid-19 out-brake put a halt to the world it what seemed to be a matter of days leaving kids unsure of their county fairs and national shows.
However, at a young age, spending everyday in the barn meant learning the responsibilities and values then that little did I know would impact me for the rest of my life. The kids that continue this tradition of showing cattle and other species have continued to spend countless hours this summer working on their projects and are continuing to learn those same aspects of life that we all have before. The dedication to those projects and responsibilities than if you don’t do the work no one else will do it for you. This converts easily to the remote learning done now that when your at home working on the farm or out playing with your friends schoolwork always comes first. The work put into those animals and schoolwork is to the best of you’re ability and done by yourself. These kids efforts finally paid off when groups of people started throwing together jackpot shows, virtual shows, and national shows, none of them being done alone and to those people I say thank you. The real world is a tough one but the time and lessons taught in the barn with those projects are why when the world shuts down cattle showing never will.
Tate and Toby had to deal with a big change with no county fairs but they continued to work hard and prepare while others may not have. The two kids were up at 5am to continue to work in the barn and when the time came to show as they popped up and they were ready. I am very proud of both of them for adapting to these changes.
Marinda Behrends- Avid show mom of Toby and Tate
Photo by Cindy Cagwin
I am Brady Haschemeyer From Golden, Illinois. I am currently a senior at Western Illinois University whose background includes FFA, 4-H, and competitively showing cattle.
There are a lot of decisions that farmers have to make when producing food. Which seed should be bought? When should the crops be planted? How much fertilizer needs to be applied? When should the crops be sold?
These are all decisions that farmers have at least some control of. What they can’t control is the weather. You probably think about farmers complaining that there isn’t enough rain or that there is too much. What you might not think about is how farmers stress out every time a severe weather system moves into their area. One of the worst severe weather events occurred this year, (of course it would happen in 2020) in Iowa. I was fortunate enough to ask WIU Alumnus, Iowa News Now Meteorologist and Storm Chaser Nicholas Stewart.
I asked him how this year’s derecho compared to severe weather events of the past with respect to damage, scale and severity to which he replied,
“From research I have done on recent events, I cannot find anything that is this extensive. Most wind and hail storms which damage crops have a narrow corridor of damage. The derecho had a 40-mile-wide path of intense wind, and it went almost across the entire state with absolute destruction to the crop. Floods tend to only damage crops in close proximity to rivers. The only other type of weather event which could have a similar widespread impact on crops would be droughts”.
A 40-mile range is quite extensive. This also tracked a long distance across the state. It wasn’t like a tornado with a narrow damage path that tracked for a long distance.
Photo Credit: Brandon Sullivan
This is personally the most damaging severe weather event I’ve ever seen as far as pertaining to agriculture. I wasn’t reporting or on the road such as Nicholas was, so I asked him what the biggest loss was of anyone he spoke to. One farmer had an insurance claim ranging from 3-4 million dollars after factoring the loss of their crops, total loss of machine sheds, and equipment as well. This damage was on Johnson Farms in Benton County, Iowa.
These farmers were lucky that they had insurance sufficient enough for that size of claim, but not all farmers carry much insurance. It’s much like life insurance, where you can purchase specified amounts of coverage. For crops, this number is a percentage of the yield the producer has actually harvested over a set timeframe of years previous. Obviously, the damage must be documented by insurance adjusters. This is just one more thing that farmers have to worry about when trying to grow our food.
Although it isn’t in his area of expertise, I asked how long it would take the farmers to recover from this. While they expected to replace their farm equipment before harvest, they were mostly concerned with where they would store their grain. As you may or may not know, it’s a long process for building grain bins which includes pouring concrete, running electrical components and hooking up to natural gas tanks for drying the grain. When the demand for new construction gets this high there are issues getting the parts and labor to keep up.
Photo Credit: Brandon Sullivan
The storms can destroy these structures relatively easily as they are just made out of tin. However, I found it amazing just how strong these winds were. Albion, which is near Marshalltown, recorded wind speeds of 99 mph early on as the storm ramped up. These speeds later increased to 112 mph in Midway which is north of Cedar Rapids, and 126 mph in Atkins which was the highest recorded speed. Surveyed estimates went as high as 130-140 mph. To put that into perspective, hurricane Katrina had measured wind speeds at landfall of 132 mph per the NWS. It isn’t very often that we get to experience anything like this, especially not since we are located so far from the major bodies of water. This will surely give farmers something to think about for upcoming growing seasons.
So how often can something like this happen? Isolated wind storms occur across the Midwest every year and do a small amount of damage, but the crops usually can recover. An event of this magnitude is pretty rare however. I asked Nicholas how often he would predict this to happen to which he said, ” This type of extreme derecho seems to happen about once a decade, however the conditions are favorable for these types of events several times a year. It just takes the right situation for it to actually happen. There was a significant derecho in 2011 on July 11. This also affected central and eastern Iowa with winds of 110-130mph in Tama, Benton and northwest Linn Counties. Another powerful derecho, known as the corn belt derecho, slammed Iowa on June 29, 1998. Once again, central and eastern Iowa was the target of this storm with reports of 104mph in Muscatine and 123mph in Washington, the previous record for strongest measured wind gust. Based on recent history, I would say sometime around 2030″.
Wow!!! What a stressful thing for those involved in agriculture to think about. Not only do they have the chance of a major storm, such as this derecho, once a decade but they also have to worry about the chance of spring flooding, hail, and severe droughts. This is the unpredictable side of agriculture that I wanted to bring light to so that it can be appreciated. It’s my hope that with the collection of data, monitoring of patterns and continuing to understand both the biology of production agriculture and of meteorology that we can better prepare ourselves for these events. Please take time to say thank you to a farmer today!
This blog post was written by Blake Sullivan. Blake is a senior at Western Illinois University, majoring in Agricultural Business. He plans to go on to graduate school to receive his MBA. He lives on his family farm in Macomb, Illinois, and enjoys fishing and golfing in his spare time.
Published in 1940, Thomas Wolfe’s “You Can’t Go Home Again” is widely considered a 20th Century classic. Like the main character of the story discovers, I left home knowing I would likely be a changed person when I returned. I left for many reasons, but primarily the desire to serve. The recent death of my cousin at the time only increased my desire. I didn’t realize how deep the scars would be and how they would persist to this day.
I left western Illinois at seventeen, bound for the United States Army. With the nation embroiled in low-grade wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, there was little doubt that I would likely see combat. In fact, even though I received a perfect score on the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) and could have chosen any job in the army, I decided on combat arms as my specialty. When I told my parents and sister what my path would be in the fall of 2003, they were understandably upset. They, like I, had endured the death of my cousin in March of the same year. I have little doubt they had many thoughts about my cousin’s flag-draped coffin, the haunting tones of Taps from the bugle, and the rifle salute at the funeral.
Having grown up in agriculture, I had grown up around life and death. A new calf or freshly emerged crop always gives way to a mature crop and a harvest. It is a cycle, the oft-described circle of life, but leaving the farm took me halfway around the world for another harvest. A harvest not conducted with combines and grain trucks, but with bullets and bombs. A harvest that didn’t end with revenue and satisfaction, but with empty boots, blood-stained uniforms, and broken families.
The Army and West Point
My early army career went much as my high school career went. I was not naturally athletic but was able to hold my own with good training. My intellectual capacity carried me as it always had. Not long after graduating basic training as an M1 Armor (Tank) Crewman, I reported to Ft. Hood, Texas, and the 1st Battalion of the 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. My time at 1/22 went quickly. I was quickly recognized as intellectually skilled, hard-working, and competent. Soon after getting to my unit, I was persuaded to apply to the United States Military Academy at West Point. I was accepted into the Class of 2009.
Receiving the Army Commendation Medal before departing for West Point, Spring 2005 (Credit: The Author)
To be truthful, I squandered my opportunity at West Point. Even though I had little time in the “real army,” all of the new cadets coming straight from high school looked up to me, and it made me arrogant. The feeling of being “above this” because I had come from the “real army” coupled with the fact that I was now “average,” or even worse, perhaps a below-average cadet, was a new feeling and one I didn’t particularly like. I was used to being the cream of the crop; at West Point, I was surrounded by the best of the entire nation and struggled. As I struggled, I became sullen, prone to injury, and lost my motivation.
After we were allowed to start calling friends, I placed a call to my XO, the second-in-command of my former unit. He, being a West Pointer but not the rah-rah type, was brutally honest. He encouraged me to stay but was open about the fact that West Point was no place to be if you weren’t “all-in.” “All-in” was not a phrase you would have used to describe New Cadet Swanson. Truth be told, I hated the idea that I was now average. It ate at me every night while I was supposed to be sleeping, and every day I was training. A couple weeks later, the XO mentioned that 1-22’s orders for Iraq had come, and they were leaving in December. My way out had presented itself. I wanted to get out of West Point and into combat.
I informed my Chain-of-Command of my thoughts and was ordered to report to the Commandant’s office. Brigadier(one-star) General Scaparrotti (later a four-star general and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe) was the first general officer I had ever met. As fate would have it, he was the right person at the right time. The General’s office was adorned in awards and unit memorabilia from an adult life that had started at West Point and had been spent in the army ever since. He asked my intentions and what I hoped to accomplish but didn’t try to persuade me one way or another. I can see now that he simply lead me to ask and answer the right questions of myself. When I informed him of how I felt, he immediately disregarded my feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty and concentrated on what I could contribute. In the short time we spent together in his office, Gen. Scaparrotti helped me understand that our darkest personal hours can sometimes lead to our most incredible triumphs, something I would appreciate soon.
At the conclusion of our meeting, and after challenging me to take this experience at West Point and use it as a springboard for my next chapter, he offered to send me anywhere in the army I desired, my pick of any unit or command or duty station in the entire world. I didn’t hesitate; I simply asked him to send me straight back to where I had come from. I needed to reclaim my confidence, and my 18-year-old self decided the best place to do that was in my old unit, and soon by extension, Iraq.
Pre-Deployment Training (Credit: Author)
Iraq
My Iraq experience in 2006 was not unlike that of many young men and women my age. Iraq was heating up, and we were up. 1/22 Infantry played a role in capturing Saddam during the last deployment. It would get a choice assignment in 2006 as well. We were assigned to an Area of Operations (AO) south of Baghdad controlled by the famous 101st Airborne Division. This AO was rural, farm country, dominated by open fields, much like my own home. The 101st had traded one of their light infantry battalions for my unit, 1/22 Infantry. We were a new style unit, branded as infantry; our battalion actually consisted of heavy armor. My company, Delta, were tankers, not infantrymen. We trained to ride into battle on 70 tons of jet-powered behemoth, armed to the teeth with three machine guns and a 120mm cannon that fired a shell with the diameter of a coffee can downrange at nearly a mile a second. We could hit almost anything we could see, night or day, bad weather or clear, up to three miles out. Unfortunately for us, the fight we primarily trained for wasn’t the fight we were getting into.
The author (right) and fellow soldiers on the Kuwaiti-Iraq border shortly after Christmas 2005. (Credit: Author)
I spent Christmas 2005 in a pouring rainstorm in tents in Kuwait. Soon after arriving in our area of operations in January of 2006, we received word that we would have to leave our tanks on the firebase. Command wanted us up close and personal with the local populace, something we couldn’t do protected by armor that was feet thick in places. Instead, we were issued Humvees, basic up-armored trucks. It was no tank, but it would get us from place to place while staying closer to the populace, all while burning a lot less fuel than the Abrams. The one thing it didn’t offer however, was the invincibility we felt in the tanks. The trucks, even with extra armor added on, were not IED proof. They also did not offer much protection from snipers, something I would become intimately familiar with later.
My first combat came quickly. No more than a few days into patrolling, we struck an IED(improvised explosive device). The bomb went off just after we passed and did little but superficial shrapnel damage to the truck. What that explosion awakened in me, I will never forget. As my platoon dismounted in the dark to search and prosecute the area, we found ourselves in a one-sided firefight. The machine gunners opened up. The relatively slow thud of the heavy .50 cal machine gun was the bass line. It pounded out a rhythm that will be forever etched in my memory. The medium 7.62mm machine guns came next, tearing through the dark with muzzle flash and tracer fire at a higher rate and pitch. Finally, above the din came the light M249 machine gun and M4 rifles, chasing every shadow the soldier behind it might have seen with tracer fire. Coupled with commands being shouted and over the occasional thump of a thrown grenade, I heard the symphony of combat. It was there, 6000 miles from home, standing beside the truck in the dark and on the radio giving status reports to the XO in the command post, that I found myself truly happy for the first time in months.
IED Strike on one of the company armored trucks. (Credit: D 1/22 Infantry, 2006)
Later, back on the outpost, the XO took me aside. He told me, “Swany, you were in the zone last night. Over the radio, I could hear all the chaos in the background, and you were so calm, your voice never changed or quickened. It was like we were back at home talking about football or the next stupid tasking we had gotten. Impressive dude.” I didn’t dare tell anyone, but I had loved it. The flood of adrenaline didn’t make me frantic or speed up time. Instead, time slowed to a crawl. My senses were on high alert and feeding my brain information in a way that I had never experienced. Combat was a drug, and I was hooked from the first taste.
I had fallen into a rice paddy while attempting to free a stuck HMMWV, platoon was generous enough to take me back to base where I showered in my body armor. (Credit: Author)Not all patrols go as planned, in this case we ended up with two trucks stuck in a rice paddy (Credit: The Author)
The next few months consisted of patrol after patrol. At first, it was 12 hours on duty, then as the fighting became more intense, it was 18 hours in the sector. At the peak, we patrolled for 24 hours at a time with 12 hours off. We ran on chow, caffeine, and for those who smoked, tax-free cigarettes; Cigarettes not measured in packs per day, but cartons. We slept on the ground in sector, dug at potential IEDS with metal detectors, fighting knives and shovels, and slowly hardened. Long hours of boredom were broken with IED strikes, buildings raided, and tense checkpoints. Men in the battalion were injured or killed with semi-regularity, but we kept at it. In one particular incident, I found myself standing directly over a live IED consisting of several 155mm artillery rounds. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
Discovering and destroying IED materials was one of our primary taskings in Iraq. This cache would be destroyed only to reveal even more weapons on this site. (Credit: Author)
In May, cracks showed. Some men had developed deep animosity towards one another and had stopped speaking. Chain-smoking Marlboros had become a past time, and the XO and 1SG were clearly struggling. 1SG had arrived in Iraq a gray-haired man. By May, his hair seemed nearly white. The XO, a man I had seen lighten a room with a well-timed joke too many times to count, had stopped laughing or smiling.
Sleeping on the ground along the Tigris River on a multi-day foot patrol, early March in Iraq is as cold as it at home. (Credit: Author)
In January, we had taken incoming mortar fire on our outpost. After taking some shrapnel from a mortar round, I had been stitched up, put up for my first Purple Heart, and put back on duty. The second time was different. It was late May, somewhere up the chain of command, it had been decided it was time for fresh troops in our area. We were tired and apparently it had started to show. It is likely that we were being replaced simply because it was time for a realignment. Either way, it did not matter, we were ready to leave Falcon. The hardest part about combat operations in Iraq wasn’t the combat itself. It was the Rules of Engagement, and the simple fact that often our objectives (covering up anti-coalition graffiti, presence patrols etc) put us on constant defense. We often had to be attacked before we could go on offense and it took a mental toll.
It was a night patrol, one of many, but we were to begin introducing our replacements to the area on this particular mission. Along for the ride on this night were a new Lieutenant and squad leader from the unit coming to relieve us and a brand new interpreter.
My re-enlistment ceremony in Iraq February 2006. (Credit:Author)
IED Magnets and the Sideline
Earlier in the day, I had picked it up a brand-new, experimental up-armored truck from the motor pool. Similar to our old ones but much improved. It had factory-installed(not retrofit) armor, door handles that actually opened the door every time, functional air-conditioning, and 61 miles on the odometer. When I had gotten back to the command post with it, 1SG had been outside smoking. He walked around it with me, smoking and admiring my brand-new ride. We chatted like we always did. As we parted, he said, “Enjoy that new truck.” I said, “Top, you and I both know this thing is going to be an IED magnet. I’m going to get blown the F*ck up!” He shook his head and walked back inside.
I was right.
I was looking over the right side of the truck. We flew down a canal road and headed back to take our new charges back to base after a few hours in the sector. After we dropped them off, we would turn around and come back out to finish our patrol. We never made it. I remember looking over a field into a palm tree grove with my head well above the armor when my world exploded. The IED detonated just in front of the truck on the passenger side. I was knocked down inside, badly dazed, with the sweet taste of cerebrospinal fluid in my mouth. I remember the radios’ green glow, unintelligible shouting over the radio speakers, the interpreter praying, and the driver screaming at me, asking if I was ok. I never did find the words to reply, I was told. I just laid in the back, my ears leaking fluid, dazed, with some interpreter I had only just met and barely spoken to praying with his hand on my face.
Purple Heart with One Oak Leaf Cluster denoting 2 awards. (Credit: Author)
We were towed back to the outpost. The truck rolled on its own wheels, but barely. Our crew wasn’t in fighting shape, and the platoon leader decided we were close enough to just drive back. Once back on the base, we went to the aid station. I was brought inside, evaluated, and promptly evacuated via helicopter to the 10th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad proper. On the way to be loaded onto the helicopter, the medics dropped my stretcher with me on it. Even after months of extended operations and dozens of pounds of weight lost, I was too heavy.
Nighttime helicopter boarding in Iraq. The landing pad I was medevac’d from on the night I was injured looked very similar to this one. (Credit: Joint Combat Camera Centre Iraq)
The next morning in Illinois, my parents got a second early morning phone call informing them I had been injured but was alive and mostly ok. Ruptured eardrums but luckily no skull fracture, it was not enough to be sent home. I was cleared to leave the hospital and go back to the unit. It was fine with me. I wanted more. Perhaps more than anything else, I just needed to finish this tour. However, I spent months on the sidelines, too damaged to patrol, not damaged enough to get sent home. I languished. I was irritable and unpleasant to be around. I wanted back out on patrol, but my superiors saw something they didn’t like, and I wasn’t medically cleared anyway. My friends kept going outside the wire and left me behind. It was horrible. Eventually, Delta company got a new tasking and needed to be at full strength. I was a medical liability, taking up space that the company required to be filled by someone useful.
They replaced me with someone from Battalion Headquarters. He got my place on the line, and I became a personal security detachment member, a glorified body-guard. Assigned to an officer on the staff, I spent the next several months driving him out to meet with Iraqi officials so he could plan joint missions and watching his back while he did it. We went outside the wire, but it wasn’t the same, no doors to kick in or weapons to find, just hands to shake and standing around waiting for something to happen. I listened to several missions via the radio while watching progress via a map in relative safety. It was gut-wrenching.
It was at this time I met Creed and Aguirre. They were also on the PSD team, Aguirre, our medic, and Creed the gunner on one of the other staff trucks. We didn’t get along that well. They came from the infantry, I from tanks. We lived in different worlds, and our personalities clashed regularly. It was one of these clashes that led to where I am today.
22 Oct 2006
The day started like any other. We met for our morning briefing, huddled around the trucks in the morning sun. My vehicle wouldn’t be going out that day. My boss had work to do at the command post and would be the senior officer in the command post to handle the inevitable problems. That day the mission was to head to a local market to show our presence and meet with the locals. The night before, Creed and I had gotten into it. It was nothing abnormal, just the result of a little too much ego on both our parts. Nevertheless, we stared at each other across the huddle behind our mirrored sunglasses, both more worried about our latest beef than the content of the briefing. Soon the briefing was over, and I left to go about my day while they geared up and left.
Something was wrong. I heard the radio go off from down the hall as I walked back into the command post after lunch. While I couldn’t hear the words, the voice’s tone on the other side of the radio was unmistakable.
While they were stopped in the market there had been contact. Creed had been shot out of his turret by a sniper. No one had seen the sniper when Aguirre went to render aid. He was also down. From a typical day to a nightmare in seconds, and all we could do was listen across the airwaves. The TOC was muted, the radio operators took the casualty reports and battle roster numbers identifying them. No call for an evacuation helicopter, just a somber report of status. They were dead.
Creed had been shot in one of the few exposed places he had while sitting in the turret, right. He was likely dead within seconds of being struck. Matthew Creed was 23 and married to his wife, Ashley. Roughly a month before his 22nd birthday on this day, Nathaniel Aguirre did what combat medics do, he went to render aid. He was shot by the same sniper and died soon after.
The convoy rolled back in, having already dropped the bodies off with the mortuary teams; Creed and Aguirre were just gone. I stood outside the TOC with some of the others with my mirrored Oakleys covering my own thousand-yard stare. The men who had been on patrol slowly slipped out of their gear. They looked a little lost. We milled around the trucks for a while. Slowly, they disappeared back to their hooches, each to deal with the day in their own way.
SPC Matthew Creed (Credit: 1/22 Infantry, US Army)Nathaniel Aguirre (Credit: 1/22 Infantry, US Army)
I told the Sergeant in charge of the TOC that I would handle cleaning the truck. He looked at me, nodded, and walked back into the building. I slipped into the drivers’ seat and drove It to the motor pool. Once there, I opened the passenger side door to find the floor inside the truck and turret covered in congealing blood and bits of tissue, the formerly olive drab seats with large dark red stains.
It took the better part of two hours to clean. There was bucket after bucket of clean water and rags to wipe down every surface and find every speck of gore. I was quiet, on autopilot, really. I viewed it as the next mission, to try and do some small thing to help those who had ridden in the truck that day. Inch by inch, I combed over that truck, trying to erase every reminder. I just removed the seats, gave them to one of the sergeants in the motor pool, and asked for replacements. Before too long, he returned with two more green seats, and it was done. Around dusk, I drove the truck back to the line and parked it in its usual location. The next day, with different crew members, it rolled out again. The mission went on.
About 6 weeks later, we flew home. Two years after that, I was medically retired from the army. Between coming home from Iraq and being retired, I performed funeral details and trained and equipped new soldiers to go to Iraq. One of those new soldiers, along with my former company commander, was also killed on the next tour. I had the honor of escorting Tucker’s remains back home to his family for burial and then made a second trip to his family when new remains were found later in the year.
When I first got back to Illinois, I didn’t think about it too much. I had a new son, a new marriage, and tried to adjust to life back on the farm. Soon though, I began to confront the demons I brought home. My new wife soon became my ex-wife, and my young son was reliant on his father to provide as a single parent. Luckily for him and me both, my parents were near. They filled the role that I could not. I got remarried to a patient, wonderful woman, who may not understand, but at least knows how to handle my struggles. We currently have 3 boys together.
“Earn This…..”
My battalion lost 26 soldiers during our 2006 tour in Iraq. When combined with the other losses of soldiers, sailors, airman and Marines I knew, along with the subsequent losses to depression and suicide post-deployment, I find myself often wondering if I’m good enough. If the life I have lead to this point, and will hopefully lead in the future, is worthy of the sacrifice my cousin Evan, Creed, Aguirre, Tucker, and thousands of others made. Did I really deserve life more than they did? They all certainly had full lives in front of them. Would the world have been a better place if it were they who survived and I who died on foreign soil? It’s an unanswerable question, and yet I find myself struggling with it regularly. I often think of the line Tom Hanks’ utters to Matt Damon at the end of Saving Private Ryan. Captain Miller says, “Earn this…“. I can relate to Ryan and his pain later in life. Their faces haunt my quiet moments, asking if I have truly earned the life I have been given.
Tom Hanks character in Saving Private Ryan, moments before he asks Ryan to “Earn This” and succumbs to his injuries. (Credit: Grady Kerr, DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures)
Hards Days and Healing
Until recently, I hadn’t thought much about Survivor’s Guilt, but guilty is how I feel. I feel guilty that I have survived by some stroke of cosmic luck, and they did not. Even though I know that it is an impossible standard, I still find myself lacking compared to the life they would have lived, at least the one that I conjure up for them in my head. I find myself wanting to be the best and achieve the most, and I am always thoroughly disappointed when I actually do succeed and feel no better. At times I have considered suicide as a relief. I certainly wouldn’t be the only one to have considered it, and there are more than a few men like me, including several I served with who have later chosen to end their lives. There is no shame in surviving, but it is undoubtedly a life sentence for me and others like me.
There is a song by country artist Brantley Gilbert called “Hard Days”. In it, Gilbert and the songwriters talk about how our worst experiences make our best days sweeter. I know there are days I feel that extra grace. There are also days that the hardest days of my life dull the shine of today. Those experiences can suck the joy out of the everyday. I encourage the reader (veteran or not) to be conscious of this. Do your best to live in the present and not let the worst days of your life color your perception of tomorrow.
Make no mistake, while there are few openly talking about it, I am not alone. Suvivor’s guilt is incredibly common among combat veterans. The remarkable thing about it is that there are thousands of veterans just like me. Most choose not to talk about it for various reasons. They may feel the public does not or will not understand, that their fellow veterans will look down on them, or they may simply not know how to process it. While my experience may be shocking for some, it is far from unusual.
Agriculture has always been a healing lifestyle for me. Seeing crops sprout, grow and flourish by your own hand and then take them to a bountiful harvest reminds us that life never stops. It always renews in the spring. I’ve had the opportunity to not only grow national-contest winning corn at home in Illinois, but also observe record-breaking soybeans in Arkansas and orange groves in Brazil. Delta agriculture has become a passion for me. Seeing rows upon rows of cotton, corn, peanuts and soybeans in the South has become one of my favorite places in the world and a welcome escape from my own mind. Agriculture feeds, clothes, and medicates the world. I see it as a way to bring some light into a world plagued by darkness.
My visit to Arkansas October 2020 (Credit:Author)
Agriculture reminds us that when the season is right, new life will always appear. For me, spring brings hope, another chance to try and live in a way that would make those men proud. Every year I struggle through fall and winter and just try to make it to spring. Those new rows of crops, fresh green in what had been a gray world, are a lifeline from the universe. A lifeline that I can grow with my own hands and one that I hope tilts the scorecard a little in my favor. My old profession was taking life, my new one creating it. In some small way, I hope that I can “Earn This” and honor those men and women who didn’t have the chance to grow old as I did.
Sunset in Summer 2020 (Credit:Author)
Matt Swanson is a father, high-yield farmer, budding land investor, space enthusiast and public speaker. Unabashedly honest, you can find him frequently getting himself into trouble on Twitter @MaxROIFarmer.
I’ve known her for my whole life. Well, all but the first 15 minutes. Micah, my twin sister. And before you wonder, no we don’t look alike. At least, I don’t see it. I couldn’t imagine what my life would have looked like if I had grown up without her. Lonely for sure. But she shaped me to be the person I am today, whether she knows it or not. Maybe this is my thank you letter to her.
Growing up with a twin is much like you’d expect. Always having someone to play with, constantly bickering, and always being asked if we can read each others mind. I always had someone to help me team up on our much larger younger brother. But, I think my favorite part is having double the clothes to pick from.
We are complete opposites. I never had to worry about people mixing us up. Although, it’s upsetting I could never switch classrooms in elementary and pretend to be her like I’ve always wanted to. Micah’s about 5 inches shorter, doesn’t play sports, and more similar to my mom, while I am a spitting image of my dad. She’s patient when I bounce around the house, likes to chill out when I’m always surrounded by people, and she takes life a little more seriously. I have a tendency to steal her clothes without asking but she lets things go easily. Micah’s not a huge fan of the dirt, while I am one to spend my time outdoors. But, I like it this way. I like that we aren’t similar like people would expect. The things she’s taught me are things I could have never learned on my own.
“A sister is both your mirror – and your opposite.”
—Elizabeth Fishel.
Me, Keaton (our younger brother), and Micah. All pic creds: Robyn Mitchell
Micah and I at my volleyball game.
Us making a speech at our older sister’s wedding.
Micah shows me how to put my faith over my fear. She takes the risks despite the consequences and I admire her for that. Micah has a lot of patience. Ever since we were kids I had to drive the barbie jeep while she rode passenger and I was always the teacher while she was the student. She never complained. She was never mad at me but was kind. Micah’s a forgiving person and never holds grudges.
We spent a lot of time together but now we spend a lot of time apart. Micah goes to University of Northern Iowa, about 3 ½ hours away. We don’t have to talk everyday for me to know she’s my best friend. I couldn’t get rid of her even if I wanted to. I hope to be the person Micah’s always been; faithful, patient, forgiving. I may be taller and 15 minutes older, but I’ve always looked up to her. Everyone tells me they’ve always wanted a twin but I was lucky enough to actually have one.
Photo creds: WIU Photo Production Center
Meet the author
Hi, I am Mariah Mitchell. I am a junior at Western Illinois University majoring in Agricultural Science with a minor in Plant Breeding. I am from small town, Wapello, Iowa. At WIU I am involved in volleyball, Sigma Alpha, SAAC, and FCA. I didn’t grow up on a farm but I see my future somewhere in the agricultural industry.
Western Illinois University School of Agriculture 