MRH Teacher Recalls Marine's Service in Iraq, Afghanistan

The attacks of 9/11 became real to Christina Steffen when her son called her one last time before deploying to Iraq.

Steffen has taught at for 11 years. Her son, Alexander Ivey, graduated in 2007 from University City High School. He finished one semester early and started Marines boot camp in January of that year at Camp Pendleton near San Diego, CA.

He served with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines Weapons Company (3/4), also known as the Thundering Third.

"I never remember a time that he didn't want to join the military," Steffen said. As a young person, he dressed up in military garb on Halloween.

Joining the Military

But Sept. 11 brought new perspective to her son's dream.

"After the 11th, I was really petrified because I knew that's what he wanted to do," Steffen said. "I think that it was all the unknown. I hadn't really thought that much about it until all that happened."

At Camp Pendleton, Ivey received training as a mortar man. Later that year, he was deployed to Iraq, where he spent seven months. He didn't have to fire mortars, Steffen said, because the conflict had died down a lot.

Instead, Ivey patrolled cities. He worked with his fellow Marines to win over the hearts and minds of the people who lived there, including the children, Steffen said. 

Back home, Steffen connected with parents, wives, girlfriends and others who had relatives in the Thundering Third using the website MarineParents.com. Moms and other family teamed up to send boxes of candy to the troops. The families experienced some of the same camaraderie that those serving overseas did.

The nature of the mission allowed Ivey to keep in regular contact with his mother. Steffen said she probably got a phone call at least once a week, sometimes twice. Staff at the high school gave her "unbelievable" support, she said, calling her to the office when her son would call. Later, gym teacher Chris Meyer organized the shipment of 60 boxes of goods to the troops when Ivey was stationed in Afghanistan.

That deployment, Steffen said, had a far different tone.

After Iraq, Ivey returned home for eight or nine months. He then spent seven months in a remote area of Afghanistan in Helmand Province during 2009 and 2010. Steffen said she probably spoke with him five times during that period. The situation was volatile, and Ivey saw a lot of combat.

"It was heavy, heavy-duty stuff," she said. Two members of his group died during his deployment.

He returned home safely in 2010, spent time working as a weapons instructor in Twentynine Palms, CA, and left the Marines on Dec. 15.

Life After Combat

Ivey now works in private security in Los Angeles, and Steffen said he wants to get back into the military. He misses the camaraderie, she said, and he is an adrenaline junkie.

Steffen said the military also gave her son a sense of duty and honor to the company. She's not sure whether he felt those things before joining the Marines.

"'I feel like I need to have a sense of purpose,'" she recalls him saying.

But Steffen said she and her son are both concerned about the level of public backing for the military.

Ivey has "not a very good taste in his mouth for the support," Steffen said, and military families don't feel as much support as they once did, either.

Steffen recalled her students' reaction at the news earlier this year to the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. To them, she said, the conflict overseas had ended.

"I said, 'No, it's not,'" recalled Steffen, who said she then told them about her son's friends still serving there.

Discussions with her son about the Middle East and events happening there have sometimes been heated, said Steffen, who has twice traveled to Saudi Arabia for workshops on critical thinking.

There, she spent time working at a women's university. When she later discussed her observations with her son, Steffen said, she came from "a very higher education ideals (perspective) … where he was on the ground talking to kids that are starving and need things."

She later added: "He's already lived a couple of lifetimes."

Looking to the Future

Steffen has friends who lived through the Sept. 11 attacks. They live in Manhattan and were downtown when planes struck the towers of the World Trade Center.

They couldn't open their windows for a year because of the dust that continued to settle after the buildings collapsed.

Steffen said her son remembers sitting in a bus on the way to school when the Sept. 11 attacks happened. Only in boot camp did he realize the significance of what had occurred. He then realized his mission was to bring his brothers home, she said.

Ten years from now, she said, things will have died down in Afghanistan. But the military will probably still be serving there.

Ivey thinks the U.S. must know its limitations and realize that no one can change cultures and traditions that have existed for thousands of years, Steffen said. He wants the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan to remain at a reduced level.

He thinks the U.S. will never leave those countries.

"Even in Iraq right now, we have troops there, but we also have contractors there, civilians there," Steffen said. "And I think that we can't lose sight of the fact that we shouldn't forget about the kids that were there, the kids that lost their lives … the ones that are wounded."

She added: "I hope in 10 years from now that we don't lose sight of who we are as a society."