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Student Profile — Rachel McNeill
Clarion editor served in Iraq
By Melissa Stelter
To this day, Rachel McNeill doesn’t really know why she joined the military. She couldn’t have known what her decision would entail – or that, just over a year later, she would be called to serve for a year in the Iraq War. Her initial decision to join, she said, was based on her desire to better understand the war that followed 9/11.
“I was completely against the military,” said McNeill, who is currently the student editor of MATC's The Clarion. “I would skip school when the recruiters came.”
But, at age 17, McNeill had a strong desire to understand what would compel people to make that choice, and so she spoke to a recruiter. Eventually, McNeill agreed to join the Army, a decision that baffled her friends and family.
“I was the last person anyone expected to join,” she said.
Since McNeill was a minor at the time, her parents had to sign a consent form to allow her to sign up. Then, she would train one weekend a month while she finished high school. After graduating from high school, McNeill began basic training, and, in the fall of 2004, attended MATC, where she was on the waiting list as a potential Visual Communications student. She didn’t think much about the growing tension between the United States and Iraq – until she was called for duty.
“All of a sudden my commander told me I was going,” McNeill related.
Even then, she didn’t consider the gravity of what she was expected to do.
“The hardest thing was telling others,” she said, admitting that she doesn’t remember how her parents reacted when she told them she was called upon to serve. “I don’t know if I just didn’t want to deal with it at the time … I felt like I’d be OK … Millions of other people (go into combat) and come out fine.”
To fulfill her orders, McNeill traveled to Camp Atterbury in Indiana where she underwent mobilization training. The day after Christmas in 2003, she boarded a plane bound for Kuwait, where she would be stationed for a month before ultimately heading to Iraq.
“At that point, I was clueless,” McNeill admitted. “I didn’t know what to expect.”
Shortly after arriving in Kuwait, McNeill encountered a problem that she claims plagues most soldiers serving in Iraq – equipment shortage. During her training, she explained, each unit “had to have guards so other units wouldn’t take (your) stuff because they didn’t have enough.”
Furthermore, McNeill felt that the training she received was inadequate. She explained that, though cutting-edge technology was available to the soldiers, “very few had a clue how to use it.”
Whether she was properly prepared or not, McNeill ended up serving the first part of her tour in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown. There, she and other members of her unit worked with local Kurds, repairing and rebuilding destroyed roads and bridges.
“They were always happy to see us,” McNeill related, explaining that Iraqis in the area were very grateful for everything the American soldiers did for them. She proudly explained her part in a 30-day mission successfully transporting and installing a generator that increased Iraq’s electrical output by six percent.
This wasn’t the case everywhere in Iraq as McNeill soon discovered when she served the next part of her tour in Ramadi, located in the much more dangerous Anbar Province. There, she explained, operations “went downhill.”
“(The Iraqis) were very unhappy to see us,” McNeill admitted.
During her time in Ramadi, McNeill performed several dangerous missions. Conversely, she revealed that she participated in many missions that proved to be ultimately futile.
McNeill explained, “Everything the Americans built was fine until they (the military) left. Then it was destroyed.”
She started to question why she and others in her unit were being asked to risk their lives to build these structures and roads that, more often that not, ended up immediately destroyed.
“It really wore down on us,” she confessed.
Another unexpected challenge McNeill encountered was her reception as a female soldier, which affected relations with the Iraqi people and a few of her commanding officers.
Of her squad leader, she stated, “It took about six months (for him to) realize I was mission capable.” She added that her situation was not a unique one for female soldiers.
As a woman serving in combat, McNeill was the subject of curiosity and confusion to the Iraqi soldiers and civilians.
“They would talk to us once they spent time with us,” McNeill explained. “They didn’t know why women were there. They thought we were there to cook and clean and keep the men happy."
McNeill found out that her tour of duty would end in December 2005. Initially, she wanted to stay in Iraq.
“I was used to it … it seemed like it would be easier,” she explained.
Her commanding officers didn’t feel it was for the best though; they told her the unit that she would stay with didn't have females in it. As a result, McNeill returned to the United States. But, she couldn’t start school again until the fall semester. Suddenly, Rachel McNeill had a lot of time on her hands.
She quickly determined that she couldn’t return to her old job of working in the reservation center for an indoor waterpark/hotel, because, after being in a combat environment for so long, she had trouble tolerating the relatively petty issues that often accompany a job in customer service.
“People are so ungrateful. They don’t know what they have,” McNeill stated. “That was my first shock, how indifferent people are about what’s really going on in the rest of the world.”
McNeill spent her first few months back in the United States traveling and relaxing.
“I didn’t do anything,” she said with a subdued laugh.
She began school again in the fall of 2006, studying visual communications. But, her experiences in Iraq are still a large part of her life.
“It ties into everyday life a lot,” McNeill said, explaining that common events can often trigger memories of wartime experiences.
Also, VA disability benefits and health care have been underfunded and difficult to obtain for McNeill and her boyfriend, who suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and a long-undiagnosed traumatic brain injury after being injured by a roadside bomb. McNeill has experienced sleeping problems as a result of tinnitus caused by the same bomb. She also worries about the potential side effects of being exposed to depleted uranium north of Baghdad, Iraq.
In spite of her own wartime experiences and their aftermaths, McNeill seems more concerned about her fellow soldiers than she does about herself.
“People can only take so much,” she declared, pointing out that suicide rates in the military have increased, as well as divorce rates. “(Soldiers) are shocked and carry that around … They can function in the military, but can they function in the real world?”
These experiences in Iraq have caused Rachel McNeill to understand the actual face of war and she has excelled in the military. For now though, McNeill is enjoying her time at MATC.
“I’ve gotten used to being back,” she said with a smile.
Note: Melissa Stelter is a Visual Communications student at MATC who would like to work as a multimedia journalist after graduating.
(Note: Photo contributed by Rachel McNeill)
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