After four years in the Army and 13 months in Iraq, 23-year-old Josh Patterson enrolled at TCU in the spring of 2010.

“Being able to go from this and immerse yourself in another culture is a big transition,” Patterson said. “My plan was to enlist, and then do [the] officer side, [and] go to college afterward.”

Patterson said his decision to join the Army after high school was largely due to his family’s military history. Both grandparents served in the military and an uncle was in the Army, so it seemed like a natural thing for him to follow that same route, he said.

But there was just one more family factor that influenced him to come to the university. Josh Patterson calls him dad, but to the TCU community he is known as head football coach Gary Patterson.

“Oh, it’s been great,” Gary Patterson said. “You know obviously with Josh being in the Army and then coming back and going back to school… he’s part of the team.”

In addition to being a student, Josh Patterson said he was given the opportunity to help his dad on the field as a student assistant for the football team.

“I get to work out up there with them, and I get to go there and help them practice,” Josh Patterson said. “I’m not throwing on the pads and getting hit because I’d probably get destroyed, but it’s pretty cool that I’m able to have that chance.”

After growing up in Kansas with his aunt and uncle, Josh Patterson said being at the university and helping out the team has given him and his dad the opportunity to make up for the time they missed spending together during his childhood. Even if it is not a sit-down conversational time, their shared passion for football gave them that time together, he said.

“It’s being able to be in the same town and that if you want to hang out, you want to talk, we’re there,” Josh Patterson said.

Even though Josh Patterson left the Army to pursue a history degree, he said he has not completely ruled out the idea of going back after graduation. Despite the downsides of deployment, he said the friendships he made while in the military were what he missed the most.

“There are some guys who I was [with] all the way through basic, all the way through deployment, and then even after deployment, we would hang out and everything,” Josh Patterson said.

Gary Patterson said he would not forget the time that Josh spent serving the country and how having his son in the military reminded him every day that there are others out there protecting him.

“Not many of us have been where bullets are flying at us,” Gary Patterson said. “I’m very proud of what he’s done.”