With his Wisconsin football career over, Jake Wood's next choice was simple. The real estate/urban land economics and political science double major knew just where to look for a job: Iraq.

"I have always wanted to serve in the military and do something for my country, so since we were still at war when I graduated, the choice was easy," Wood said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald.

Almost immediately after playing in his last game — Wisconsin's 24-21 loss to Georgia in the 2005 Outback Bowl — Wood began his training for the Marine Corps, but he had made up his choice long before then.

"It was in his family and his lifelong dream was to be a Marine," former teammate Lyle Maiava said. "He talked about it ever since our freshman year. I'd go back home with him to Iowa, and he'd be showing me pictures of his grandfather in the Marines.

"I always knew he was going to go into the military," Maiava added. "I just didn't think it'd be right after football. After that last bowl game, he went straight into his training and lost a lot of weight."

It didn't hurt that after graduating with a business degree and a few internships, Wood finally realized that a suit and tie just wouldn't cut it for him. He also realized that he was the perfect type of person to serve in the military with his family background, physical training as a 6-foot-6, 296-pound offensive lineman and just overall desire.

"I just know that I have the physical and mental capacity to do it, and I knew I owed this country something for all the opportunities it had given me, such as being able to attend Wisconsin and play football," Wood said.

Although Wood has been in Iraq for five months now, Wisconsin football is still in his thoughts. He thinks about it in the bunkers, when he's weight training and any other free time he has.

When Wood is able to have Internet access, he keeps in touch with former teammates such as Maiava and checks how the Badgers are doing. He even tried to get off of work this past weekend to see where Joe Thomas, his old friend on UW's offensive line, would be selected in the NFL Draft.

"Apparently that didn't fit in with our mission for the day," Wood said.

Wood's best memory as a Badger: "Beating Ohio State's ass my junior year (2003) at home in the rain when they were coming off their national championship. When the students rushed the field, it was unbelievable; it was the ultimate statement of Badger pride."

But Wood hasn't had the opportunity to so much as even touch a pigskin while in service. In Iraq, there's only one sport to play.

"The sport of choice is called 'stay alive,' and that one never ends," Wood said. "We have no time for anything organized. … We can't even go outside our hootches without full gear and a rifle, [but] that'd be a hell of a game actually now that I think about it."

About the only thing athletically Wood is able to do is lift weights, and he's been doing a lot of it. Wood introduced two of his co-workers to the weight-lifting program he was on at Wisconsin and now their goal is "to get freakin' huge by the end of the deployment."

But while Wood keeps UW in his heart, it doesn't distract him one bit while he's on duty, even when work gets boring, which happens quite often.

"The typical day is usually boring as hell," Wood said. "We generally patrol for anywhere between six to 20 hours in a day. (In) 95 percent of the patrols, nothing is going to happen and you know it, but the second you let your guard down, that 5 percent inevitably happens, and it quickly dissolves into a nightmare."

Wood's platoon has been fortunate: That 5 percent has rarely occurred, but the group has experienced it all.

"We've been hit by improvised explosive devices (IEDs or booby traps), we've been ambushed by machine guns, hit by snipers, taken mortar fire," Wood said. "But it's not every day like the news makes it out."

Despite the catastrophes, Wood still stays on track with his mission. His job is to run counter-insurgency ops — that is, gather intelligence on area insurgents and act on it. In the end, Wood's task is to safely continue in civil affairs with local Iraqis by building schools or getting water and power to people who haven't had such resources in decades.

While the possibility of missing the 2007 Wisconsin football season remains for the ex-Badger, his former teammates say Wood's work in Iraq defines him more than anything else.

"That's Jake for you," Maiava said. "He's all about honoring the USA and patriotism. He looks forward to representing the country any way he can."