Major David Cserep has so recently returned from Afghanistan that as he nurses his coffee at his kitchen table and relates the story of his deployments, there’s a soft “thump” of a delivery on the porch.
It’s a large Army-issue footlocker, battered and plastered with postal stickers. He stacks it with two others by the door of his rural Auburn farmhouse.
In addition to Afghanistan, Cserep’s deployments since 9/11 have included Fort Hood, Texas; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and Iraq. It’s the ordinariness of his story that makes it extraordinary: In a post-9/11 world, multiple deployments have become the rule, not the exception.
“You don’t join today without going somewhere,” said Cserep, a member of the U.S. Army Reserves. “We’ve changed from the strategic reserve to the operation reserve.”
The United States Armed Forces today stand 1.4 million strong, according to the Department of Defense. The Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs says more than half a million veterans live in Indiana.
The increased pressure on military men, women and families since 9/11 has resulted in a new G.I. Bill and a slow but growing awareness of the mental toll of war. According to the U.S. Army surgeon general, members who have experienced multiple deployments carry greater risk of developing mental health problems.
Cserep has had a close-up view of the changing military. His most recent deployment took him to eastern Afghanistan where he served as a provost marshal, an officer in charge of military police.
On paper, it’s not too different from his civilian job as a sergeant at the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department. Cserep had been in the reserves for years before 9/11 but had never been deployed.
He was coming off a night shift at the sheriff’s department on 9/11 and had just gone to bed when his wife shook him awake. His calm reaction sticks in her mind.
“When I woke you up, you said, ‘I’m going,’ ” Michelle Cserep said.
Michelle Cserep has done the best she could to run a home daycare and farm and raise four children while her husband has been away. It hasn’t always been easy; there’s a low moment she won’t share on the record, except to say it involves late-night cow-wrangling, manure and tears.
With her husband by her side now, she laughs about it. Her main priority has been to keep positive spirits.
The only material change she made to her routine was beginning daily walks with her sister. But becoming, in essence, a single mother has been a challenge.
“We just tried to keep things as normal as possible, mainly for the kids,” she said.
Her husband said having a strong support system at home is crucial for deployed military.
“If things are going bad at home, they don’t go well there,” he said.
David Cserep has tried to be supportive from afar, maintaining daily contact and even telephoning an Auburn pizza parlor a few weeks before his return to surprise his wife and children with a Friday night treat. Cserep gave his credit card number to a pizza parlor employee, who called Michelle to tell her she could order whatever she wanted.
Cserep saw the worst action in Iraq but said he stayed mostly “inside the wire” – out of harm’s way.
On the day his son made his first Communion – in fact, the very hour – Cserep’s Iraq base was shelled with more than 100 rockets. In 2006, a friend Cserep had served with years earlier, Capt. Michael Todd Fiscus of Milford, died in Afghanistan.
Those events have left their marks, and Cserep has missed being a daily part of the lives of his wife and children, now 6, 8, 12 and 16.
At 45, he’s considering retirement from what began as a way to make some extra money.
“After 9/11, it became a mission,” he said. “I knew it was going to be drawn out.”
