I traveled home to Wisconsin from Fort Dix, New Jersey on a bus - in those days I hated flying in anything other than a helicopter. The flight from Frankfurt, West Germany had been in a packed Sardine can. 

   I remember my mom and dad picking me up from the bus station. I wore a tortoise-shell-colored sweater for the Wisconsin November air, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. In those days you did not bother to wear your uniform home. Few of us wanted to deal with the looks people would give us. It was 1977. Vietnam still simmered in the back of everyones' minds. It was easier to just hide it. All that might give it away was our short hair. The hair styles on men in those days was still long.

   I have never seen anything scholarly written on the social hierarchy we put on military participation. But since I was a kid I was introduced to it through my dad's World War II experience. He held quite high status in the community for his military service. He had been a farmer so he did not actually have to serve - they could get a deferment - yes even in World War II. Those that did get a deferment were quietly sighed at by their peers. Mom called them Zoot Suiters. Dad went in the Army because the world was under attack.  Dad went to Africa early in the War. He was at Kaserine - a notorious battle. He had made the rank of Sargent. He came back to Wisconsin after the war to quietly farm in peace. It seems most of his generation found solidarity in their massive participation in the war effort.  We had won the war.

   Then there was me. I joined the Army because the economy was bad. I went to Germany, not Vietnam. The Russians never attacked. My peers fought the Vietnam War. I had made the rank of Specialist 4th Class - a rank few back home could understand.  Most of my generation did not participate in either the military or protesting of the war.  I came home to no job. We lost the Vietnam War. 

   I seem to hold some higher reverence than those that served in California or Hawaii which was considered to be milk-toast duty. But I have a lower status if those guys were airborne qualified. The self categorizing hierarchy of military participation is fatiguing. It is like one of those guys that knows every thing about and every part name to a race car. I just want to know if the car will carry me from point A to point B. None-the-less, the latent self policed participation hierarchy exists. 

   The military of course, gets the ball rolling by its soldier ranking system with its officer corps verses enlisted soldiers system. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) predicates membership on one's location when in the military. The American Legion used an era ranking for membership. The Pentagon declares a soldier dead for combat or non-combat circumstances. Wounds are categorized the same.  Maybe it's just me, but dead...is still dead. 

   The Vietnam veterans have their own symbiotic hierarchy system. Those stationed in-country in Vietnam in the early 1960s are thought to be there before the real action started. Those there in the early 1970s are thought to be in the reduction-of-forces category when America's presence in Vietnam was waning. Your job in "'Nam" definitely affords you standing or not. Those in the battle of Kha Shan are held up to a higher regard than one stationed in Saigon in a supply office. Those drafted into the military fall into a different regard than one who volunteered. Remember 90 percent of this stuff is norms, mores, and unwritten. 

   Few people now days that live in this new fight-wars-with-National-Guard-and-Reservists culture, realize that a great deal of people joined the Guard and Reserves during Vietnam to avoid the Draft and getting sent to "'Nam." That tactic landed folks in another layer of the hierarchy. Every election time we still argue about who did what during Vietnam. Did you serve? Did you avoid? Did you protest? And on and on. 

   The coup de grace came for me 30 years after my military service. I had been doing research in Vietnam. I was in the midst of my third journalistic endeavor there in-country. I had dozens of people I was dispatching information to from Vietnam and Laos. A Vietnam veteran I met on an earlier trip to Hue, Vietnam emailed me and asked me to quit using the term "'Nam." 

   You see, according to him, that is an exclusive term only Vietnam Veterans that have been in-country during the war can use. No matter I served in the Army overseas during the war and with dozens of close friends who had just been over there in Vietnam. No matter I subsequently went to Vietnam and Laos three times after the war. No matter I am trying to figure out why we fight the wars where we do and how the people in those countries live. 

   The caveat I have for everyone about this strange phenomenon is this. Especially, now with another era of war with participants growing in number as we speak - this cast system of layered patriotism ain't going away.

   This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Private First Class Nichole M. Frye, 19 of Lena, Oconto County. Nichole was killed when a roadside bomb struck her convoy in Baquba, Iraq, on Monday, February 16, 2004. Pfc. Frye was with Company A, 415th Civil Affairs Battalion, U.S. Army Reserve. Four other soldiers in the Michigan-based unit were wounded in the attack. Pfc Frye had been deployed to Iraq just one month before her death. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Frye, had worked as a waitress. She was the second woman from Wisconsin and the third reservist from the state to die in Iraq. Frye was the 10th Wisconsin soldier to have died while serving in Iraq since the beginning of the war. The Journal Sentinel also noted Frye joined the Army a couple months before high school graduation in the spring of 2002. She originally joined a nearby Green Bay-based civil affairs battalion but was transferred to the Michigan unit prior to heading for Iraq in January 2004. According to the Associated press via the Journal Sentinel she was delivering supplies like water and food to various assignments and books to the kids. The Journal Sentinel mentioned that Civil affairs Reserve units are loaded with soldiers who have white-collar experience. Their jobs can involve anything from rebuilding sewer systems to helping with elections. Nichole is survived by her mom and dad and a younger brother and sister. 

   3,513 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

   25,950 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003.

   75 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

   106 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

Soldier of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.