Catching up with PC North’s Dustin Decker
Putnam City North's Dustin Decker is ready to fight for his country.
I’m sure many of you remember our story about Dustin Decker – the Putnam City North lineman who had already enlisted in the Army National Guard — last fall.
Had everything gone as planned, he would have already shipped out for Army basic training, but the wear and tear on his knee from football and wrestling left him with a large tear of the meniscus, which required surgery in January. He has been fully released from his recovery, and will ship out in August, unless he can get an early ship date. Because of the injury, he was unable to report to basic with his friend and teammate Miles Holladay — the two enlisted together — who has already left for Fort Leonard Wood.
But other future plans have changed for Decker as well. He still has a goal of becoming an Army officer, but with his enlistment in the Guard, he is exempt from overseas deployment for two years while he’s in college. Yet that’s what he wants to do. So, after completing basic training and advanced individual training, he hopes to volunteer with the 45th Infantry Brigade when they deploy to Afghanistan early next year.
“As you can imagine, a mother would be inclined to try to talk her son out of volunteering to put his life on the line for his country if it was possible to avoid it,” his mother, Andrea Decker, said. “But Dustin is no ordinary young man. I didn’t talk him into becoming a soldier; it’s his nature. And it’s just been his calling ever since September 11, 2001.”
– Scott Wright, swright@opubco.com
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