After 9/11 attacks, Ohioan felt he had to serve his country

As Colin Busse sat in class at Solon High School near Cleveland one September morning in 2001, he had no idea two ways things related to that room would change his life.
One was the presence of Andrea De Roia, a classmate who much further down the road would become his wife.
The other was the 9/11 attacks that rocked America. Busse was just a freshman at Solon when the attacks occurred, and he remembers the hushed reactions of teachers, the turning on televisions across the school and the shocking sight of one of the Twin Towers being hit by an airplane as the other smoldered, both soon to come to earth.

Busse's grandfather fought in World War II in the Pacific Theater and his father served in Vietnam with the Army, so Busse had always been familiar with the concept of military service. But seeing the impact of what happened that September day in New York City, Washington DC and rural Pennsylvania ignited a passion.
"I think my dad and my grandfather being in the military, that was part of it, but I had this passion after 9/11 to give back and do something great," said Busse, who was the Blue Jackets'
Elk & Elk military salute honoree
for the Feb. 7 game vs. Detroit.
"There was always this guilt that I was going to go off to college and there were guys that were putting their life on the line for me instead of going to school. I saw that as an opportunity to pursue my dream to give back."
For a while, Busse did what every other kid in Solon did, starring as quarterback of the Comets' football team and then going on to the University of Dayton as an undergraduate, where he joined the school's ROTC program.
But it quickly became clear that wasn't enough, and in December 2005 -- just months after enrolling at UD -- he enlisted in the Army. After going through basic training and airborne school, he reported to Afghanistan at age 19 in January 2007 as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division.
It was, simply put, not an easy task. The 82nd was sent to the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan, tasked with maintaining a position from the Taliban at a key mountain pass. It was a spot that not even Russia could maintain during its war against the mujahidden in the country in the 1980s, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, a Taliban leader, and his network of fighters were none too pleased about the Americans' presence.
"I think the word they like to use is it was a kinetic deployment," Busse said now. "We were basically in a remote outpost in the middle of the mountains. We didn't have a lot of resources and were under mortar attack and ambush pretty much every week.
"Our mission was to hold this mountain pass and basically search and destroy. We were fighting the Haqqani network, which is still around today. We killed a lot of fighters, and that was basically what we were sent there to do.
"When we came there … we had heard some intelligence saying that Siraj Haqqani wanted to wipe our outpost off the map. We would often do drills as though the enemy was trying to overrun our base, what to do. We would practice that a lot because they were really pissed off we were occupying that territory and defeating their ambush at the time.
"That was my first deployment, and that really felt like we had accomplished a lot."
Busse spent 15 months there, though things ended poorly. Three days before he was set to finish that deployment, his vehicle was struck by a command-detonated roadside bomb, wounding Busse and leading to his immediate evacuation from the country.
He would return, though, for another yearlong deployment from August 2009 to August 2010, this time in the western part of Afghanistan, where his unit trained Afghan national police officers. Finally, Busse returned home for good, receiving his acceptance letter to Ohio State University during his time in Afghanistan, leaving the army in October 2010 and starting at OSU in January 2011.
Busse eventually became a recipient of a Purple Heart and an army commendation with a "V" device for Valor during his time served. After returning to attend OSU, he worked closely with the Office of Military and Veterans Services and lived in the veterans' complex, where he and his friends would often take advantage of the free attendance to watch Ohio State hockey games. It took him just two and a half years to earn his degree.
His accomplishments certainly made him a fitting person for the Blue Jackets' military salute, and he was recognized by the Nationwide Arena crowd before the national anthem as well as during a timeout during the first period of play during that game vs. the Red Wings. He was also presented with a customized Blue Jackets jersey by former Columbus player Jared Boll, describing the whole night as a memory he'll never forget.
"It was incredible from start to finish," he said. "The hospitality that the Jackets gave to myself and my family, it was really nice. We didn't ask for anything and for them to do all that, it was an incredible experience and it was an incredible display of gratitude for just a random guy like me, so it was really nice and really incredible."
Busse currently lives back in the Cleveland area with Andrea and their young son and is an account manager for a landscaping company. Though he likely never could have seen exactly where his life would take him when his passion to serve his country was ignited, he's proud of the uncommon path he has followed.
"Growing up in Solon, the expectation was you graduate high school, you go to college and you get your degree, and you do things like play sports," he said. "And I think there was just something inside of me that I had a passion and a desire to do something different and something that I thought was important."