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For Staff Sgt. Nick Minecci, joining the Army forced him to re-examine his world, his habits and himself.

As an enlisted soldier, he learned there was a time and place to ask questions. As a non-commissioned officer, he learned it was difficult to give commands to soldiers that were his own age.

"I had to grow up," Minecci, 40, said.

Minecci was one of a group of veterans who shared their experiences with Urbana High School students on Nov. 12. The school's Veterans Club invited the former servicemen to the school and provided them with a luncheon donated by Urbana businesses.

Colleen Bernard, a social studies teacher and club sponsor, organizes the event every year in hopes that students will pay respect to veterans around Veterans Day.

Members of the club meet once a month, and have several ongoing programs to honor local veterans, including collecting magazines for patients at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, clipping coupons for a Naval base in Japan because of the expense of groceries in that country, planning a holiday party at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and a Valentines for Veterans program in which students send Valentines to patients at local Veterans Administration hospitals.

Minecci has served nearly 14 years of active duty in the Army, serving in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, Somalia during the Battle of Mogadishu, in addition to Haiti, Bosnia, and three tours during the ongoing war in Iraq.

From 1988-1989, he was stationed in West Germany on the Czechoslovakian border during the fall of the Soviet Union. He saw the Berlin Wall fall, and David Hasselhoff, whose hit single "Looking for Freedom" was popular in Europe at the time, perform. A year later, he was in Saudi Arabia, living in a hole in the sand and eating field rations.

He said the most rewarding point in his service was returning home and providing disaster relief in Florida following Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Minecci, of Frederick, also works as an editor for the Fort Detrick newspaper, The Standard, and joined the Army because it offered him the opportunity to be a photojournalist.

Chelsea Hewison, a 15-year-old junior, and Karmini Mondal, a 16-year-old-junior, said they were impressed by Minecci's ability to recall events he had reported on as a military journalist.

"You have to have a photographic memory," Minecci said.

Students got a chance to ask the veterans questions at a panel discussion held in the school's media center.

Wendell Murphy was a forward observer in the Army who directed artillery fire during the Korean War.

He viewed his service as an obligation to his country, but said the conditions were often difficult. His job as forward observer was a lonely one, and once when he was shot while on patrol with his unit in an attack that killed his lieutenant and sergeant, having a radio saved his life as he called for help.

"Anyone who would tell you that they weren't scared — something is wrong with their mind," he said. Students asked him how much sleep he got, and what he did in his free time. "There was no free time," Murphy said.

Robert Mount also served in the Army during the Korean War as an engineer.

He said his time in Korea was cold, uncomfortable and dangerous. He said that as an 18-year-old corporal, being assigned to tasks he was unaccustomed to, such as holding bridges and digging gun emplacements, was frightening.

"I had a lot of experiences in that trip, none of them too pleasant," he said.

However, in response to a student's question about whether having to take and give orders made him feel a loss of identity, Mount said the military was a different culture and obedience can mean the difference between life and death.

"When you're in the military, you don't function very much as an individual," he said. "You're a team person."

E-mail Christian Brown at chbrown@gazette.net.