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DSU Student Resumes Teaching After Tour of Duty in Iraq

Dakota State University senior Daniel Swartos is about midway through his student teaching experience and it must feel like deja vu all over again. Dan is a member of the National Guard 740th Transportation Company out of Brookings, and a veteran of the Iraq War.

When Dan started his first student teaching assignment in the spring of 2003, he had no idea that within weeks he would be called up to serve a tour of duty in Iraq. Because his guard unit was on alert, Dan was required to carry a cell phone with him at all times, but he still didn’t think that his unit would be activated. Then on a Monday in February while Dan was in his classroom, the cell phone rang and he was ordered to report to his unit by Thursday of that same week. He trained with his unit over the weekend and most of the next week and left for Fort Carson, CO for further training. The week before Easter 2003, Dan was on his way to Kuwait for what would turn into 18 months away from home and family, and school.

The family Dan left behind included a new wife. Dan married fellow DSU student Maria Ust, on the Tuesday before he left for Fort Carson. Maria graduated in the spring of 2003 with a degree in elementary education and is now teaching 4th grade in Duebrook. Dan meanwhile, left his school books behind to serve his country. “The college was good about it. They understood what was happening,” said Dan.

Because he was with a transportation company, Dan found himself hauling equipment from bases in Kuwait all the way into Baghdad. He ended up driving over 2 million miles and saw people and situations that would change his philosophies of life and learning forever. “There were kids alongside the road all the time begging for food and water and they didn’t have any shoes on or many clothes on. It makes you realize what our kids have here. It makes you appreciate the education system we have here. I think I saw one school the whole time I was there.”

If it wasn’t for his time in Iraq he would have graduated from DSU in 2002, but Dan doesn’t regret his service to the Guard. He has about a year and a half left of his Guard commitment, and he doesn’t plan to reenlist. “There are good points and bad. But I don’t want to put my wife through that [another oversees tour] again.”

Dan has been enjoying his student teaching experience and says that “right away it was hard switching from being over there in a combat zone to a classroom,” although he laughs when he says that some days the stress level of the war zone and the class room are pretty much the same. “ I was nervous coming back to teach right away because I’d missed 3 semesters of school but once I got started I just loved it. It was just getting back in there.”

Dan and Maria live in Brookings and for now, he is enjoying spending time with his wife in their new home, and savoring all the things that most of us take for granted each day. He will graduate in December with his elementary education/special education degree and is hoping to find a teaching job in this area.