Instead of spending last Valentine’s Day with his new fiancee, ISU student Ben Varner was in transit to the insecure Sunni Triangle, one of the most hazardous areas of duty for service men and women.

This year, Varner will be in Davenport, where his family, four cats and dog look forward to welcoming him “home-home.”

Varner, an active duty reservist with the 389th Engineer Battalion unit out of Dubuque, returned to Iowa last Monday after serving a year-long tour of duty in the Middle East.

“I left on Valentine’s Day,” he said. “I didn’t really know what a deployment was like. I had never been on one. Joining the Reserves, you never think something like that would happen.”

Varner majored in civil engineering before leaving for duty and plans to resume coursework in the fall semester.

He served as a technical engineer specialist, one of five surveyors at Camp Anaconda in Balad, a city about 45 miles north of Baghdad. He said some of his duties included marking survey stations, building roads, collecting geographic information and creating topographic maps of the area.

He said he also served as a semi-automatic weapons gunner on many convoy missions.

“I loved going on convoys,” Varner said. “I was pretty much always begging to go on them. I’ve been a lot of places.”

He said going off-post on convoy assignments was great because it allowed him to see the country, the people and other military bases in the area.

Convoy missions were not always so pleasant, however. Varner recalled an incident where his unit had to turn around because of a potential attack to their convoy. He said they were headed toward Baghdad, but were warned beforehand about potential threats along the way.

“They [Army personnel] said if you see somebody open up a cage and a bunch of pigeons fly out, that’s a signal for convoys coming,” he said.

He said this was a way insurgents communicated with each other in efforts to ambush convoys.

Varner’s convoy spotted a person releasing pigeons from a cage, so “everybody turned,” and luckily no one was harmed, he said.

He said he was inspired to join the Reserves after the attacks of Sept. 11.

“I had mono, so every time I was awake, that was on the TV,” he said. “First I thought it was a joke.”

Varner said after he recovered from mono, he went to the recruiter’s office in the mall to find out more about joining the military. Friday will be the third anniversary of Varner’s service in the Army Reserve.

Varner said the only thing he was really worried about during his time in Iraq was being away from his fiancee, Kelly Mueller.

“I was more worried about Kelly, but she did great, so not much to worry about,” he said.

“[It is] so surreal,” Mueller said. “I’m at a loss for words. I hugged him and I was speechless.”

Varner and Mueller met three and a half years ago when they were working together at a movie theater in their hometown of Davenport.

Mueller, a sophomore in pre-business, said she remembers going to her chemistry class around this time last year and how she “sat in the back and bawled.”

She said she tried not to think about his yearlong absence, but her heart would sink if she didn’t receive his usual e-mail, because she wouldn’t have the security of hearing from him.

Mueller said, in retrospect, the year went quickly, and the time away changed both of them for the better.

“It’s almost like it was a blessing in disguise,” Mueller said. “Now we are closer together and closer to God.”

Varner returned home just in time to celebrate Valentine’s Day, but the couple plans to have a quiet, low-key evening at home.

“It’s just so great having him home,” Mueller said. “That’s the best [Valentine’s Day] present ever.”