A long road home to Santa Clara

By Rachel Schwartz

Some people might wear their Santa Clara shirts to Malley. But for 13 months, Clint Maples wore his proudly on a military base in Iraq, even after being yelled at by a commanding officer to take it off.

Maples, a junior business student who started studying at Santa Clara over the summer, recently returned from a year spent stationed in Iraq with the Army Reserve working as a psychological operations specialist.

As part of a three-man team, Maples directly advised the battalion commander about the psychological impact of the battalion's actions on Iraqis and worked on the Iraqi elections process.

Maples was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for meritorious achievement while serving as a part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, an award that he is proud of, yet downplays.

"There's good days, and there's bad days. And on the good days you do something great like open a brand new school, and on a bad day one of your friends gets hurt," Maples said. "I guess it's just having an attitude of making the best of every day, no matter what kind of day it is."

Attending Santa Clara was a goal for Maples since shortly after graduating high school. After attending Las Positas College from 2001 to 2004 in Livermore, Calif., he was granted admission for winter quarter 2005.

The week before classes were to start, however, Maples received a deployment letter that informed him he would be going to Iraq. Maples was deployed with the 101st Airborne Division in March 2005.

The Bronze Star Medal was authorized by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 and is given to soldiers who "distinguished himself or herself by heroic or meritorious achievement or service" in the military, according to a description of the award on the Pentagon Web site.

"I know it's something that's not awarded very lightly and that not a lot of people get it," Maples' mother Doreen Maples said.

He and the other members of his team also received the Combat Action Badge and Gold Combat Spurs for their service.

Maples is proud of the award but also very modest about receiving the high honor. He did not even tell his family about the award until he returned home. Maples' commander told him that he had been recommended for the medal before it had been awarded and was officially notified that he had been awarded the medal shortly before returning home in April 2006.

Only after his family asked him about another award -- his Combat Action Badge -- did Maples tell them that he had been awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

"It just felt like I was bragging," Maples said. "There are some things I just don't like to talk about."

Maples signed up with the Army Reserve in June 2002.

He had originally intended to sign up with his younger brother Cameron through the Army's buddy program that allows friends to enlist together. The friends are then able to go through training together and be stationed together when they are deployed.

"We felt like we wanted to serve, we wanted to do something, give something back," Maples said. "We're just really grateful for where we live and the opportunities that we've had, and we wanted to participate in some way."

Although he and his brother had discussed serving together, he did not tell his parents until after he had already enlisted. Hearing that her son had enlisted was difficult, but Maples' mother understood his decision because he had always had a strong sense of commitment to his country, she said.

"You don't sleep well. You worry when you have kids overseas," she said. "But I never once believed they wouldn't come back just fine."

While Maples was stationed in Iraq, his mother would send him Santa Clara apparel which he would wear on base instead of his fatigues, earning lectures from his supervisors.

Maples' brother was still in high school when they decided to enlist and needed to finish his senior year before he could go into training. Because of their schedules, the only jobs available to the two together would have been cargo specialists, positions that neither wanted.

Maples' brother enlisted in active duty, and Maples opted for the Reserve so that he could keep studying while serving.

"I was already in school and wanted to finish my degree," Maples said. "I didn't want to get out of the army at the age of 30 and still need to get my degree."

Although Maples said he was apprehensive about being deployed, it was an inevitability that came with being in the armed forces.

"It's like being in a sports program. So you go to practice everyday, and then the game finally comes, and you've been practicing for years and years, and they ask, 'do you want to play in the game,' and you do," Maples said.

Maples was stationed outside of Hawija, in the northern corner of Sunni Triangle. Maples described his time in Iraq as lonely and said that it was much different than the media displays it.

"In the news they present things as being really violent. You always hear about people getting blown up and that sort of thing," Maples said. "They never talk about the hospital that got built or the half dozen clinics that were set up."

Maples participated on raids during his deployment but said that, for the most part, Iraqis were grateful for what American forces were doing.

"The Iraqi people were just like us," Maples said. "They just want their kids to grow up and go to school and have a better life than they did. They don't care about war or any of that stuff. They just want to live and feed their families."

Being away from his family also took a toll on Maples, but he was able to see his brother, who was also deployed in Iraq during the same period. The Army issues four-day passes that allow those serving on the front lines to enjoy a few days of rest. Rather than using the opportunity to take a mini-vacation on the Gulf, Maples requested to visit his brother's unit, which was stationed a few hours away.

"We had to pull guard duty and stuff like that, but you're still with family, so that was really awesome," Maples said.

Maples' choice to visit his brother over a vacation did not surprise his mother.

"Clint has a commitment to family that you don't see in most 20-year-olds," Doreen Maples said.

Maples returned home this past June and said that after spending over a year in Iraq, he has a new appreciation for girls and the color green. "You see trees and you're like, 'sweet!' "

Rather than take the summer off, Maples immediately signed up for summer classes so he could get back on track toward earning his degree in finance. Maples also plays on the lacrosse club team and is a member of Alpha Kappa Psi. While he has a schedule that might be taxing to other students, he finds it almost leisurely.

"There's way less discipline, which is awesome," Maples said. "There's no one yelling at you or that kind of thing. I feel like I have a ridiculous amount of free time."

Contact Rachel Schwartz at (408) 554-4546 or rschwartz@scu.edu.