They both served their country, though that service was separated by a few decades and a few wars.

For right now, Devan LaCroix, 32, is the maintenance manager at Aegis Inn of Bothell. In August, the Army National Guard sergeant returned from his second deployment in Iraq.

A resident at Aegis, Virginia McCulloch, 93, long since returned from her deployment as an Army nurse working overseas during World War II. She left for Italy shortly after graduating from the Vanderbuilt University nursing school toward the middle of the war, part of a unit actually put together by the school at the request of the government.

Both LaCroix and McCulloch are among several veterans who will be directly honored with an event today, Veterans Day 2009, at Aegis of Bothell. The gathering will take place from 2-3 p.m. at 10605 N.E. 185th St.

LaCroix said he joined the National Guard to travel and to serve his country. He also followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, Ralph Petersen, a World War II Army vet who earned the Purple Heart. LaCroix said he remembers talking to another vet of that era, an Aegis resident at the time, before leaving for Iraq.

“The people who served back then, I think they had it a little harder than we do today,” LaCroix said, noting that among other factors, hand-to-hand combat is largely a thing of the past.

For her part, McCulloch admits she doesn’t necessarily remember a whole lot about her service, though more comes out the more she talks. Of course, McCulloch was one of only a limited number of women in the Army at the time.

“They were very good to us back then,” she said.

McCulloch also remembers being sent overseas very quickly after volunteering. Besides Italy, McCulloch also served in France and finally Germany, about three years overall. McCulloch never saw any fighting herself, but said she served fairly close to the front lines. She didn’t talk much about the soldiers she helped treat.

“We couldn’t afford to get very attached to them,” she said. Many were headed back to the front lines as soon as they were able.

LaCroix spent his latest deployment on a different sort of front line, with his unit largely serving as security for various convoys carrying supplies to numerous spots in Iraq. And, yes, as you’ve heard on the news, such an assignment is not the safest of jobs.

“Threats of roadside bombs were an everyday fact,” LaCroix said.

Convoys traveled almost exclusively at night and never stuck to a set schedule, strategies designed to throw off any would-be attackers, mostly native insurgents. LaCroix said his unit was ambushed twice, but also added he saw nowhere near the level of fighting he witnessed during his first one-year tour in Iraq during 2004.

At that point, LaCroix said the war was at its hottest, with combat an almost daily occurrence.

“Things have calmed down considerably since then,” he said. LaCroix said he didn’t have much contact with Iraqi natives this time around, but many seem to view the American military as just part of the landscape, part of the community.

“They’re still friendly, but they are getting kind of tired of our presence,” LaCroix said.

As for the insurgents, they are both dissatisfied Iraqis and, LaCroix said, some civilians simply desperate for money and recruited by the more radical population.

“They’re just normal everyday people trying to earn a dollar,” he said.

LaCroix said those impatient for American soldiers to pull out of Iraq need to understand the possibility of a civil war if the U.S. just suddenly disappeared from that country. At one point, he also expressed a wish that the media gave a better accounting of how the Americans have helped build schools, provided medical supplies and given many Iraqis a job.

In 2011, LaCroix said he will be five years from having served 20 years in the military. He talked about reenlisting, but for now is happy to be home, visiting with son Haiden, who is all of 18 months.

LaCroix lamented missing a lot of Haiden’s “firsts”: his first Christmas, his first tooth and so on. Despite that and some occasional trouble sleeping, LaCroix has no regrets. Neither does McCulloch for the decision she made to sign up all those years ago, though she admits to not talking about it much, even to her own children.

“I’m proud of it, of course,” she said.