Alfredo Vargas, 22, sits in the bedroom of his frat house. A picture of the American flag hangs on the wall. Only black and white photos of Saddam Hussein serve as reminders of war now thousands of miles away.

But when Vargas, a National Guard sergeant who fought in Iraq for nearly nine months, shed his fatigues for blue jeans and left the war behind to return to school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign this fall, he came home to a different kind of fight: a political fight.

The war in Iraq has dominated election rhetoric in 2004 the way the economy dominated the campaign in 1992. And the issue could drive more voters, especially young voters, to the polls than ever before.

According to an I-ELECT survey, University of Illinois students ranked war as one of the most important issues motivating students to vote this year. Nearly 40 percent said it was “extremely important.”

Vargas’ experience in Iraq will be his primary motivation for going to the polls on Nov. 2, and he hopes others will join him.

“Sometimes it makes me mad the way people act or they don’t care or are just ignorant of the things that are important in this life,” Vargas, a Chicago native, said. “On a college campus, we are basically in our own little bubble, in our own little world.”

In the last election, 36.1 percent of people between 18 and 24 voted, a record low, according to U.S. Census Bureau survey. But even the “college bubble” cannot protect students from the effects of war. More than 60 percent of the military is between the ages of 18 and 30, said Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense. Vargas is one of 700 students from his university serving in the military, according to the University of Illinois Office of Financial Aid.

“People our age probably know a lot of people who are overseas, or they feel like they might be the next ones to go to war, or their friends might be in the military and be called over there,” said Kalyn Cooper, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Illinois who rated national security as the top issue inspiring her to vote. “It’s just really on the home front for people our age especially.”

Although Americans of all ages feel the burden of war, the issue may be the most significant factor igniting a political spark in the youngest demographic in America’s electorate, and Michael Biggs, a sociology professor from the University of Illinois believes that the emotional attachments to war make the issue more likely to push people to the polls.

“In any social phenomenon, you are going to find a lot of different reasons why people care,” Biggs said.

Although the economy, including the job market, was ranked the highest in the I-ELECT survey, it is statistically tied with the war and higher education funding as the top issue. The survey found the importance of the economy had strong ties to personal experience – losing a job, struggling to pay for college and more. No similar correlation was found with the war. Biggs said the students’ interest in the war was driven more by morality than personal experience.

“I think the economy is much vaguer,” Biggs said. “First of all, the war is a moral issue. It’s about death and killing, so obviously it’s going to arouse people’s passions more than the economy, which is much harder to frame in moral terms.”

Biggs added that the possibility of a draft was a pressing matter to college-age voters.

“Obviously, the prospect of a draft is a distant one, not an immediate (concern), but I think it still weighs on students’ minds a little bit,” Biggs said. “But I also think people are concerned about America’s image in the world and America’s standing in the world.”

For Steve Nunn, the war in Iraq is reminiscent of another time and another war in which American lives were lost and similar passions stirred: the Vietnam War.

“Those guys that are in Iraq are in a concrete jungle,” said Nunn, a Vietnam War veteran and a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “It’s the same jungle, same situation going on. You don’t know where to turn; you don’t know what’s going to get you killed.”

The Vietnam era marked the high point for youth activism in the United States, said military historian and University of Illinois professor John Lynn. In 1972, voting among the 18-to-24 demographic was at its highest as well.

Vietnam veteran Joe Miller sees several parallels between the war in Vietnam and the current war in Iraq. When he talks to his students about the Iraq war, he hears an echo of his own experience.

“It’s not about the war. It’s not about the politics of war,” Miller said. “It’s about your buddy — wanting them to be safe, wanting them to come home, and also, if you’ve lost friends, not wanting them to have died for no reason.”

In the United States, voters continue to hear death reports, nearly on a daily basis. Vargas, the student who fought in Iraq, was injured; he hurt his back when his Humvee flipped over.

Yet, he never expected to go in the first place.

Thinking he would be serving “one weekend a month, two weeks a year,” Vargas signed up for the National Guard.

Then, Sept. 11, 2001 happened.

Vargas was only a freshman when he was told on Jan. 29, 2003, to pack up for duty. More than a year and a half after being shipped to Iraq, Vargas is still a freshman and two credits shy of sophomore status.

Despite the blinding sandstorms that he endured overseas, the mounting U.S. casualties and his war injury, Vargas said the war had only fueled his motivation to vote this year.
“I’m a more aware voter now,” he said. “When you’re 18 years old, you’re led by your family and what they think, but I’m a more mature voter now.”

The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the events that followed affected many young Americans, not just those who were called up to duty, said Craig Rimmerman, a political science professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York.

“September 11 has had a profound effect on many young people, and it is going to be the galvanizing event of their lifetimes,” Rimmerman said.

He said his students were more fearful and more worried about how the government handled certain situations and the “potential threats to their rights and liberties.”

Since the terrorist attacks three years ago, many college students have grown up with the thought of terrorism as a national issue, said former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, now an analyst and professor at the University of Illinois’ Institute of Government and Public Affairs.

“Mostly, people here haven’t been through a war. They haven’t been touched by the terrorists, but they saw what happened,” Edgar said. “It’s had an impact even though it hasn’t personally touched them. I think that underscores the depth of that issue.”

However, after losing a friend in Iraq on Oct. 1, Cooper, the student who rated the war as her top issue for voting, believes that without the right leadership, another terrorist attack could happen.

Events like Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq have struck a tangible chord with young voters like Cooper and Vargas. But even college-aged voters who are not directly affected are inspired to act.

“College students have a broader view,” said Biggs. “That’s the idea of coming to college — to get a broader view than your own selfish interest or what is directly relevant to your life. So I think college students are the ones that feel the need to stand up for things they believe in even if it’s not directly related to themselves.”