Interview with Husker fans in Iraq - Part I

1 comment so far November 20, 2006 by Jason Siffring

During this week of Thanksgiving, we think it is appropriate to give our thanks to the thousands of Americans in our military who are serving our nation overseas.

SGT Steven Kane and SGT Jonathan Hanseling are both Nebraskans currently stationed in Iraq and agreed to share their thoughts with us on life as Husker fans stationed in Iraq.

SGT Kane and SSG Johnson with their Husker flag in front of an old Iraqi tank that somehow got missed in the bombing.

What does watching Husker games mean to you folks personally, being stationed so far from home?

SGT Jonathan Hanseling: For me it’s a reminder of good times back home. I’ve been a diehard Husker fan from birth, and Husker football has always been a huge part of my life. Every fall, Husker game days were an event that caused everything else to stand still. I guess watching Husker games over here gives me an opportunity to put Iraq and everything I do over here on the back burner for a few hours and just focus on the ‘skers. It can be a little bittersweet – between selling pop at the games and working gate security for the Guard, I’ve been to nearly every home game in the last 8 years, so missing the past two home football years of home football games has been a tough pill to swallow.

SGT Steven Kane: The Husker team has definitely given us something to look forward to every week. The days here are pretty routine and it has been often said that being deployed is 365 Groundhogs days in a row: same people, same clothes, and same job. Having a Husker game on Saturday night/Sunday morning is usually the highlight of our week and reminds us of home and what we are over here fighting for.

Every group of Husker fans has its own game day or game watching traditions, from food to lucky shirts and other weird stuff. Are there any cool traditions or special things about your watch party group has that you want to share with the readers?

Steve: I wish we could say that we are able to put on our Husker stuff, but no civilian clothes are allowed. We gather in our office for the games to either listen to the broadcast on huskers.com or watch on AFN (armed forces network) cable. About 6 weeks ago we started grilling out for the games. We pick up hamburgers (or steaks when they have them which isn't very often) from the PX and then raid the chow hall for the rest of our supplies. We are a little bit limited on what we can get, but we make do. We added nachos to the list 2 weeks ago. We usually have a few NA beers and smoke a cigar or two to simulate the tail gate experience.

Jonathan: Well, we’ve got a pretty tight group of “die-hards” that will watch/listen to the Husker games at any hour of the night. There are about 5 of us. Early in the season, when most of the games weren’t available on TV over here, we would all huddle around two flimsy computer speakers and listen to the games over the internet radio, and the games would usually kick-off in the wee hours of the morning when everyone else would be racked out. Once the season wore on, and some of the games got picked up on AFN, larger groups would gather on the back patio to watch the games on TV. Well, unfortunately the large patio parties tended to coincide with Husker losses, so once our “die-hard” group identified this trend, we retreated to our office to try and re-create the early season karma. So far, so good – we’re 2-0 back in the office.

Also, our grilling has earned us quite a reputation. We do our best to re-create the game day atmosphere, and of course bar-b-quing is critical to any good husker pre-game party. We’ve grilled steaks, burgers, brats and sirloin. We’ve recently added nacho platters to our pre-game grub. It felt a little weird grilling out and cracking open n/a beers at 3:00 a.m., but at the same time it feels right – if you know what I mean.

Huskers vs Texas on the patio. SGT Kane (in PTs in the background): "We quit going out to the patio because we lost 2 games in a row out there. Now we stay in our office."

Do you catch the games live (either video or audio)? If so, what's the latest you've been up to see/hear a game? Does Jim Rose sound better when you're in the middle of a desert?

Jonathan: Early in the season our only avenue was the radio broadcasts, via huskers.com. We had a lot of night games this year, which mean kick off is 3:00 a.m. over here for a 6:00 p.m. central time game. That was when our die-hard group was formed – if you were willing to wake up in the middle of the night to listen to the Huskers rough up Nicholls State, well that’s saying something. Also, when we woke up in the middle of the night, we weren’t handed any leeway on our work schedules. The dedication to the Huskers usually meant sacrificing 3-4 hours of prime sleep time. We started getting real lucky with AFN picking up our games towards the middle of the season. I was thinking we would be lucky to catch 2-3 games on TV when the season started. We will end up being able to catch up to 9 games on TV all told, assuming we get the Big 12 title game and our bowl game. One game was tape delayed – the Iowa State game. We had to wait until Sunday morning to watch it, when the game had already been over for a good 6 hours. It was tough to avoid news of the outcome from friends, family and the internet, but we were able to stay in the dark up until kick-off and watch the game as if it was live. We also had a situation where the KU game (which was scheduled to be broadcast live over here) was pr-empted by MLB. That caused some poor AFN folks to receive more than a couple angry emails from Husker faithful – they must have gotten the message, because we’ve gotten almost every Husker game since then.

As far as Rose is concerned – don’t even get me started. Let’s just say it’s better than dead air.

Steve: We have been extraordinary lucky with the games. The AFN cable system usually picks up 2 to 3 games for each time slot, so the competition is pretty fierce. We figured at the beginning of the season we would probably get USC and Texas live, which we did. The KU game was originally scheduled to be aired, and then they cancelled it at the last minute. We emailed the program director voicing our displeasure. The next week they televised ISU on tape delay the next morning. Since then we've had OSU, Missouri, and A&M all live which has been awesome. Somebody at AFN is listening to our emails about how important the games are to us! We should get CU (no competition for the time slot) and the Big 12 title as well. They have really taken care of us. The other games we listen live on Huskers.com. Ol' Rosey does all right. We always get a laugh at some of his inane references. We are 9 hours ahead so we are usually up late. The best games for us are the 1100 CST ones, we get those at 2000 which isn't bad. The worst are the night time games, we were here at 0330 for a few of those. The ones at 0330 that are on the radio are tough to stay focused for.

Husker flag flying over LSA Anaconda. SGT Kane: "This flag was stolen right off the flag pole but we put another one up. We have to take it down every night now."

Do you get tapes or DVD's of the games? If so, are you able to maintain a "cone of silence" so that no one spoils the outcome until you hear the games?

Steve: We do get the HuskerVision DVDS. Somebody from out unit talked to the athletic department and we get a stack of the games about a week after, which is really nice. We can't wait a week so we listen to the radio broadcast and then watch them later. Although we fast forward through the bad parts like the 2nd, 3rd and most of the 4th quarter of the KU game. Can’t say enough about all of the support we get from the good folks back home.

Jonathan: Husker Vision and the NU athletic department have teamed up and donated copies of each week’s game to be sent over here for the troops. They usually send 6-8 copies of each game, which usually arrive a week or two after the game was taped. Fortunately, we haven’t had to rely on the DVDs too much as we’ve had great luck with the games being broadcast on AFN. As far as keeping quiet until the DVDs arrive – that’s not going to happen. I found it nearly impossible to tough it out for a few hours in order to watch the Iowa State game – I can’t imagine the pain of avoiding results of the game for a week or more.

Editor's Note: SGT Kane and SGT Hanseling both have active blogs. Brent's Blog is also written by a Husker fan in Iraq. Be sure to check them out.

Related: Interview with Husker Fans in Iraq Part I

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