The Travels of a Soldier Buckeye Fan

Photo By Sgt. Maj. Rich Greene | Buckeye fan Sgt. Major Rich Greene grew up in Worthington, Ohio, and is currently deployed supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. He travels through Iraq and Kuwait frequently from his current assignment with the 1st Sustainment Command (Theater). Greene will redeploy to his family in Fayetteville, NC, in June, 2008.  

10.10.2007

Story by Sgt. Maj. Rich Greene 

1st Theater Sustainment Command

By Sgt. Major Rich Greene
1st Sustainment Command (Theater)

Buckeye fever knows no boundary, country, state or nation. Nowhere is that more evident than what we as Soldiers see everyday around the world. How do I know? Twenty years of experience.

"You can't swing a dead cat without hitting one of you Ohio State guys," said Lt. Col. Randy Duke, a self-proclaimed Tennessee fan as I hung my Ohio State banner on the wall. "You guys are everywhere. It's like a plague."

In one respect, I guess he's right. Buckeye fever spreads like wildfire, and it is most definitely contagious.

At the end of this month I will have been in the Army 20 years, and from Panama to Sarajevo, Somalia to Seoul -- throughout my travels to 49 countries -- the one constant (besides my family to come home to) has been -- Buckeye fans.

I remember staying up all night in the dark bowels of Sarajevo's Zetra Stadium to watch Eddie and the Buckeyes play Tennessee in the '95/'96 Citrus Bowl. My unit was there with a group of British Soldiers and they had a European satellite dish that was able to pick up a British broadcast of the game.

The commentary was by some Irish guy who used to play high school football, or stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. One of the British Soldiers there had gone to high school in Columbus as a foreign exchange student, and he was proud to tell everyone gathered that he was a true Buckeye fan. He was wearing his faded, too small, threadbare Ohio State University (OSU) shirt.

I was immediately impressed.

My experience with the 1993 Holiday Bowl was interesting too, in that I watched the game in the American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) tent in Mogadishu, Somalia. There were OSU banners and towels hung from the 550 cord that ran from one tent pole to another.

The tent was for everyone to watch the early morning football games, and as usual, Buckeye fans abounded while there were scant few BYU fans in sight. We smoked cigars and cleaned our weapons while watching the Buckeyes win 28-21. Believe me -- anything is better than an MRE (prepackaged meal ready to eat) for a bowl game snack. But if it's all you have, pass the chicken a la king ... trust me on that one.

The 2001 Citrus Bowl was tape delayed by AFRTS, which is good and bad. Good because you know you will be able to see the Buckeyes play. Bad because the ticker is on the bottom of the screen. Now I don't know about everyone else, but I really don't want to know the score of a game I'm going to watch later.

I had a crowd of OSU fans over to watch the bowl game at our quarters in Heidelberg, Germany. My friend Mike, a huge Louisiana State Univesrity (LSU) fan, came over to watch the game with us. After three years of working on him, he was at the point where he would root for Ohio State as long as they weren't playing the Tigers. Whenever the ticker came on, I ran out of the room because I didn't want to know the score. I didn't trust myself or the guys there to not make some comment and let a little hint slip. When I got back in the living room he had this look on his face like "don't you really want to know?"

I didn't ask, and even with the great comeback at the end of the game, the 'heave-ho' Bellisari bomb that the South Carolina defensive back picked off to stunt the Buckeye drive at the end, I'm glad I watched it without knowing the outcome. It hurt -- but it wasn't like leaning into the punch.

I was in Balad, Iraq, last month and I saw evidence of the Buckeye nation there as well. Brutus Buckeye was painted on one of the 12 foot concrete barriers that protect tents, buildings and common areas from mortar fire. Tradition is that units paint their patch, unit crest, or mascot on the barriers much like the old "Kilroy was here" cartoon from WWII. But in Balad, the Soldiers from the 641st Quartermaster Detachment (water purification) of the Ohio National Guard left their mark by painting the Ohio flag on one barrier, then Brutus Buckeye smashing through the wall on the next. Nice.

This season I watch what games I can by having a friend send me DVDs of the games. The DVDs get here about a week after the game is played, but even if it was a month after, I'd be grateful. I wrote him that each DVD he sends me gets seen by about 30-40 people as we pass it from Soldier to Soldier. I think the Youngstown State game DVD is somewhere north of Baghdad. I lose track.

AFRTS carried some of the Buckeye games this season, but as much as we may seem to be just traveling Buckeye fans, we do have other jobs to do over here. Missions keep some guys out for days or weeks at a time, but you can usually catch an old copy of Stars and Stripes or try to get online to see how they did that week.

For example, this year's Washington game was on AFRTS, but since it was a west coast evening game, it started at 3:00 a.m. local time. I caught about eight plays before the alarm rang, noticed it was morning and Groundhog Day began all over again.

If there's been one constant in all these 20 years, as the administration changed, my uniforms (and two-mile run time) changed, one thing remained the same. In any chow hall around the world, of you shout "O, H ...," you will always be answered with a resounding "... I, O."

• Date Taken: 10.10.2007
• Date Posted: 10.10.2007 08:35
• Story ID: 12795