Serving and feeding his country important to Army veteran

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ill. — Ever since Corey Trobaugh was a kid, he wanted to either defend his country or help feed it — and he has done both.

“I joined the National Guard in 1996 when I was in high school and went to basic training my junior year,” he said. “I graduated from high school, finished my advanced training and I was air defense out of Dixon.”

Trobaugh’s goal after high school was to start farming and milk cows. He worked several jobs that included a security guard position, feeding cattle, milking cows and helping on the family farm.

“I talked to an Army recruiter and said I wanted to be active duty and infantry,” he said. “To do that, he said I had to go through basic training again.”

In 1999, Trobaugh went to Fort Benning in Georgia to complete basic training.

“It was a whole lot easier the second time,” he said. “My first duty station was at Fairbanks, Alaska, where it was cold and the mosquitoes were huge and bountiful.”

Trobaugh was stationed in Alaska when the 9/11 attacks hit the United States.

“I re-enlisted and went to airborne school because I wanted to jump out of planes,” Trobaugh said.

“I was at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne Division when we were deployed to Afghanistan in June of 2002,” he recalled. “My daughter, Katelynn, was 13 days old when I left for Afghanistan.”

“Then it was back and forth, every six to eight months,” he said. “That was the hardest part — you would get a little down time and then you would start gearing up for the next deployment.”

In 2003, Trobaugh was severely wounded in Iraq.

“They gave me a 50/50 chance that I was going to make it,” he said. “I was hit in the throat, shoulder and my left forearm.”

When Trobaugh woke up in a hospital in Baghdad, he was strapped down and he looked over and saw an Iraqi in the next bed.

“There was nothing American on the walls, so I thought I had been captured,” he said. “I started freaking out until the nurses came in the room.”

The soldier spent some time in a hospital in Germany for more recovery before returning to the United States.

“Because my arm has plates and screws in it to hold it together, the doctors told me I should not jump anymore,” he said.

Trobaugh’s last deployment was from August 2007 to November 2008 in Iraq.

“That was a pretty rough tour, seven or eight guys were killed and 15 to 20 were wounded,” Trobaugh said.

“When I came back to the U.S., they decided to make me an Army recruiter, so I went to recruiting school,” he said.

“By June of 2009, I was going to high schools to recruit kids to go into the Army and I got lucky because I came back to this area as a recruiter at Freeport, Illinois.”

Trobaugh purchased his grandparents’ house from his dad and still had the desire to be involved with farming.

“When I heard Art Wolf had fallen off the silo, I showed up here to help him,” Trobaugh said. “This is the same farm where I milked cows when I was in high school.”

“Art sold the cows in March of 2014, but by November of 2014, we were shipping milk again,” he said. “We bought some cows and came up with a plan to go 50/50 and we did that for a few years.”

When Wolf died, Trobaugh had been involved with Wolf Dairy Farm for almost 14 years.

“The guy who bought the farm decided to rent it to me,” he said.

Trobaugh is milking about 50 Holstein, Brown Swiss and Jersey cows and he feeds cattle and owns a 30-cow beef herd.

“I also farm from 160 to 170 acres that are mostly hay ground and pasture,” he said. “I buy equipment I can afford and fix a lot of my machinery.”

Trobaugh recommends that every kid should serve their country.

“The military is not for everybody so do something that is more than just for yourself,” he said. “Become an EMT or join your local volunteer fire department.”

Currently, Trobaugh’s son, Gattlin, is in the Marine Corps and is stationed in Japan.

“I’m glad he joined the military, but I would have preferred he went into the Army,” he said. “He is the person you call when a computer system is giving you problems.”

“I don’t regret a minute of my service — I would do it all over again,” said Trobaugh, who is medically retired from the Army. “I’ve had good times and bad times and I think every kid should at least try to do something.”