Meet Spc. Nick Druecke

Nick Druecke is stationed at Camp Taji, Iraq, 6,339 miles from home in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

I was born in Waupun hospital, and lived in Beaver Dam for all of my life. My family was split as a result of a divorce I am too young to remember, both of my parents remarried. My mother, Heidi, first to a man named Eric Schoenberger who was in the Army for ten years. My father Lorne Druecke remarried after several years to a woman named Jenni Hart. They are still married today. My mother however passed away not too long ago, I honestly don’t remember the date. Not one of those things you wish to remember, I do remember however that it was shortly before I graduated high school (BD HIGH). I had trouble with that, I began to drink very heavily and only with the help of my friends did I recover. At the time I was working for a small gas station (CENEX) just on the outskirts of town.

After an unsatisfactory month of employment with a satellite TV company, I joined the military on 20 August 2007. My reasoning was the paycheck was steady, and that is about the only thing true to this day about the military. I enlisted as an infantryman and after basic went to Ft. Hood, Tx where I would report to Bravo Co 2/8 CAV and trained with them for the next year in preparation for their next deployment. Shortly before we deployed our platoon was selected to become part of a new unit called 'blues platoon', which is a big deal in Cav history. The last time this unit was around was in Vietnam. If you've ever seen 'We Were Soldiers,' it’s the same basic principle. I'll let you do your own research on that one, but to the big brass this was pretty huge.

So we moved units and became part of Fox Troop (FELONS) 3/227 Attack Helicopter Battalion. We had a train up and deployed to Iraq in late April.

To be continued.

- Nick