Home Front: Robert Bauer

“My dad is Jim and my mom’s Carol. Farming was primarily their jobs. My mom worked some other jobs outside the farm… now they’re both retired,” Bauer said.

“I have two younger brothers, Corey and Dan, and then a younger sister, Cindy.

“After completing high school, I went and got a degree at Mid-State and then also a degree at Fox Valley before going into the military. And then after getting back from my basic and AIT, completed some additional training through Northcentral Tech and Upper Iowa University.”

In February 1994, Bauer enlisted in the Wisconsin Army National Guard.

“My dad actually was in the military during the Vietnam era, so I think he was kind of surprised that I decided to join. I didn’t join until I was 23 years old, so at that point I had already been working several jobs and actually had attended some college already,” Bauer recalled.

“At that time, I was working at a construction job; some of the guys that I was working with were all in either National Guard or Reserves, and I’d hear them talk about some of the things they did. And I thought, ‘Man, that kind of interests me,’ so that’s kind of what planted the seed. So initially, that’s how it started.

“The National Guard unit was right there in Marshfield that I initially joined. So I just wanted to do a little something different. I know the recruiter tried to talk me out of it because at that point I had my EMT already, which they granted me a secondary MOS as combat medic, but I wanted to do field artillery, so that’s what I did.

“So when I went to basic training, that was in Fort Sill, Okla. I ended up flying a plane. So prior, that was actually the first time I ever flew a plane.

“My first unit, I was with Alpha Battery, first of the 120th in Marshfield. Was there for a few years, and then after that, I took a promotion and ended up going to the detachment that was based out of Abbotsford. Did that for a couple years, and then after that, I got another promotion and came back to the Marshfield unit and was there for just a few years, then took a lateral transfer to Charlie Battery, which would have been based out of Stevens Point. And then that was where things kind of started, you know, with my overseas deployments and stuff. I ended up getting mobilized, going to Kuwait on my first deployment, was there from 2005 through 2006.”

Bauer served during multiple deployments and mobilizations during Operation Noble Eagle, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Irma.

He retired from the Wisconsin Army National Guard in March 2020, and said one of the best parts of his time in the service was seeing the world through a different lens.

“Growing up here in a farm community and having that opportunity to go out there and see the world and seeing it from a different lens than what you would see on TV,” Bauer said.

“A lot of times if you look on TV, you’re only getting part of the story; you’re not seeing with your own eyes what’s really going on with those people that are being impacted with it. Getting to see those people in Iraq, even in Kuwait, and having candid conversations. We didn’t really talk about politics, but it was just conversations about where they grew up, what they do, whatever. But you got to see a different side, so yeah, that was definitely good.”