Thursday, April 3, 2008
It’s been a tough year for Cesar Millan. The ’97 Kansas graduate is a Captain in the United States Army and is currently stationed in Rhamadi, Iraq. As a diehard Kansas fan, Millan has missed out on one of the best seasons in the history of Kansas athletics.
“At first, especially when the football season started, I was really, really disappointed,” Millan said. “I was just so disappointed that I couldn’t be there because years like this just don’t come around. Things just aligned for us.”
Rhamadi is nine hours ahead of Lawrence, meaning a 1 p.m. game starts at 10 p.m. in Iraq. A 7 p.m. primetime game begins at 4 a.m. Still, Millan stays up late or wakes up early to watch as many Jayhawk games as he can on the Armed Forces Network.
“The 7 or 8 o’clock games are not a problem, they are easy to watch because I just wake up an hour or two earlier than normal,” Millan said. “They are the easiest. It’s the ones earlier in the day, that start in the afternoon at one or whatever, that cause me some problems and force me to miss most of them.”
Millan spends plenty of time on the internet each day, reading kusports.com and newspaper Web sites such as those of the UDK and the Kansas City Star to stay up to date with everything going on with the football and basketball teams.
But because he is the lone Jayhawk in a unit filled with Missouri Tigers fans, Millan has trouble finding anyone willing to talk Kansas sports with him these days.
“None of them even went to Mizzou,” Millan said. “But like all Missouri fans, they don’t like Kansas. I try to talk to them, but they don’t want to hear it.”
Millan, a member of the Army reserves, is a lawyer in St. Louis. He spent a year in Bagdad in 2004 and at age 34. He needs to stay enlisted for four more years to receive his retirement benefits that he is awarded after 20 years of service. Since the current policy allows for soldiers to be deployed only one year out of five, Millan hopes that his time is done.
The duty of Millan’s unit is to walk the streets of Rhamadi and convince the Iraqi citizens to accept the current form of government and to encourage them to vote in the upcoming elections.
“We influence the Iraqi populous through media, and at my level, we do it through key communicators,” Millan said. “Through people who can put our themes and messages out to the population, people that have influence such as the Iraqi security forces. We tell them to support the government and that things are getting better and turning around and not to support al-Qaida or any other terrorist group.”
Millan is home for two weeks leave and was able to watch the Jayhawks first four wins in the NCAA Tournament with friends at sports bars in both St. Louis and Kansas City. But luck would have it that with the biggest game of the season coming up, Millan leaves Friday at 9 a.m. to head back to Iraq for the remaining three months of his unit’s time.
“Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out that way,” Millan said. “I got to see everything else.”
Millan will fly to Atlanta before boarding an Army charter for the 14 hour flight to Kuwait. He then will have another plane ride and a helicopter ride back to Rhamadi. He is worried, however, that he might not be able to find a TV to watch the games.
“I’m real concerned with that, it’s going to be hit or miss,” Millan said. “I’ll be very thankful if I can watch it. It’s going to be dicey, finding a TV to watch it on. I’ll be in between airplanes and just hope I can find a TV.”
And what will a lifelong Jayhawk fan do if his alma mater is able to win the championship and cut down the nets on Monday night?
“I’ll be calling everybody on the satellite phone and sending out e-mails,” Millan said. “I’ll be happy as hell. I want to see us do it. I’m going to have to live it through my friends, find out where everybody was at when we won, how the partying was in Lawrence and San Antonio, and just how excited everyone was. I’ll buy my T-shirt when I get back.”
— Edited by Jared Duncan
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