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| Conroy |
By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
Each day America remains free can be directly credited to the men and women who’ve protected this nation for centuries. Our freedoms result from the honor and strength residing in those who defended this country from those who wished to bring it harm, but America’s veterans have but one day a year where their fellow citizens honor the soldiers.
Veterans, of course, inherently have the right to observe their holiday however they see fit, and Caribou native Aaron Conroy, a former Second Class Petty Officer, enjoys spending Nov. 11 in the woods, hunting. (Veterans’ Day often falls on a weekday so there’s significantly less people in the woods.)
But there’s more on Conroy’s mind come Veterans’ Day than blaze orange and bagging game. “There are still men and women over there right now, probably some people from Caribou and Aroostook County,” he explained.
Like many Global War on Terror veterans and veterans in general, Conroy is modest when it comes to his service. He participated in two deployments during the eight years he served in the Navy, first in 2000 and again in December 2002 through May 2003 — Operation Iraqi Freedom officially began during the first few months of his second deployment.
While many view military service as a heroic act, Conroy just sees it as doing his job — an attitude that he says is pretty standard among the other veterans he knows.
“We don’t like to talk about ourselves because it’s just one of those things; I was just doing my job,” he explained, adding that he definitely doesn’t consider himself heroic. “It’s just something that you do.”
But back in 2003, Teague Park students wouldn’t have sent care packages for the entire ship if they didn’t see the sailors’ service as a heroic attribute.
Coordinated by Aaron’s mother and educator at the elementary school, Karen Conroy, students sent enough goodies to remind approximately 240 men and 60 women that their service was appreciated.
Though it took some effort for the Caribou contingent to get in touch with the ship, a Spruance-class destroyer, big boxes filled with things like sweets and shaving cream reached the sailors all the way in the Red Sea.
“It was a lot of minor stuff — candy, shaving cream and razors — but it’s the thought that made it really uplifting,” Aaron described. The Caribou-created care package brighten more spirits than just Aaron‘s, too. “There are a lot of people who don’t have families who send them stuff — some of them don’t have families period — and some of them don’t get mail or anything,” he described.
Care packages help remind soldiers that there are people thinking about them back in the country they‘re defending. (That’s one reason why Aaron’s been looking for local support to help create care packages to send our country’s military personnel.)
The Conroys are a very close-knit family, which is why the holidays were really rough for Aaron and his family as Aaron never requested Thanksgiving or Christmas off. Many men and women currently serving have spouses and children — Aaron would make sure to be working on the holidays so that his fellow sailors with their own families could spend time at home.
While the holidays were difficult, Aaron credits his family for being very supportive during his time in the Navy “and they still really support me in everything I do,” he said.
There are days when Aaron misses being in the Navy, but joining the military wasn’t something he’d even thought of when he graduated from Caribou High School in 1998.
During his first year attending the University of Maine at Presque Isle, a recruiter came and spoke with Aaron about the Navy.
He found himself at Boot Camp on June 3, 1999 in Great Lakes, Ill. Interestingly enough, the native of land-locked Caribou found that he had a pretty sturdy pair of sea legs — in all his eight years of service, not once did he experience sea sickness. He says it’s partially due to the good weather he encountered and the fact that he practically grew up on the water.
“My grandmother has a house on Madawaska Lake, so we pretty much lived in canoes growing up,” he said.
Joining the military in 1999, Aaron watched from his Navy ship in 2001 when America was attacked by terrorists in 2001.
He remembers the captain coming over the loud speaker and ordering everyone to stop whatever work they were doing and go stand in front of a television.
Like most other Americans, they watched in horror as the second Twin Tower was hit.
The crew had previously been scheduled to deploy that day for a two-week workout; after the attacks, they ended up deploying two hours early.
Stationed at Norfolk, Va., Conroy recalls that most of the ships in port went out to sea rather quickly following the attack. All were shocked by the 9/11 attacks, but with the shock Aaron and his fellow sailors experienced came this sense that justice would be brought upon whoever was responsible.
Conroy was honorably discharged on April 22, 2007, having spent the second half of his time with the Navy serving as a recruiter.
“The biggest thing about the military in general is that it gives you so much life experience,” he said. Conroy recalls seeing people enter into the service at 18 or 19 years old and wondering if they were ever going to grow up — and then marveling at how they’ve become a totally different person by the time they’ve completed their service.
“It’s does a lot for a person, you see a lot and you do a lot,” he said, adding that while he means no disrespect to his home town, “There’s a lot more to the world than Aroostook County, Maine.”
The Navy took Conroy to roughly 20 countries in four and a half years. To list a few of the experiences the Navy afforded him, he did a one-day tour of Rome and saw the Colleseum, St. Peter’s Square and the Vatican; at Israel’s Port of Haifa, he saw Bethlehem, Jeruselum, and swam in the Dead Sea. Traveling is what Conroy misses the most about the navy, and fondly recalled particularly his time in Italy.
“I ate so much Italian food,” he recalled with a big smile, “Italy was good to me.”
Back home in Aroostook County, education’s been the focus of Aaron’s endeavors. He’s slated to graduate from the University of Maine at Presque Isle in May, 2012, with a bachelor’s degree in business management, having already received two associate’s from Northern Maine Community College in diesel hydraulics and automotives.
But the transition back to student from being a soldier hasn’t been an entirely smooth ride.
“The military is a lifestyle, and it’s so different,” Aaron said.
For example, after spending eight years of his adult life adhering to scheduling that may as well have been set in stone, the lenience and flexibility of the civilian world can sometimes frustrate Conroy —particularly when plans change. “It takes a lot of getting used to,” he said.
But because he upheld the ridged military rules and regulations, he can appreciate the little things that non-military citizens take for granted — like sick days.
“People don’t realize it, but you don’t call in sick with the military.” Conroy described how on his ship, for instance, a sick sailor had to report to the medical staff and they would decide whether or not you were too sick to work — there was no calling in, no having someone else call in for you and certainly no such thing as a personal day. (Needless to say, Aaron’s not known for skipping much class).
Even to take a vacation day, Aaron had to submit the proper request form, wait two weeks and hope that the powers that be signed-off on it, pending there was nothing else going on.
But he has about a dozen friends who are fellow GWT veterans that he can laugh with about the nuances of adjusting back to civilian life, and he estimates there are hundreds of GWT veterans in Aroostook County.
While most civilians will have Veterans’ Day off from work, most veterans overseas have no option but to work long hours on the holiday that celebrates their service.
That’s why if Conroy could encourage non-military civilians to do one thing on Veterans’ Day, it’s remember that they have the day off for a reason.
