Big guns, heavy duty vehicles and MREs aren't part of a high school student's typical day, but they're part of the lives of soldiers in the National Guard, Homer High School students learned Friday.

Students in an American military history class at Homer High School visiting the Ithaca Armory learned about life in the military and met soldiers who recently returned from combat duty in Afghanistan.

Homer social studies teacher Joe Cortese has been teaching the military history class for eight years, and started taking his students to visit National Guard units about six years ago. The course is not for flag-waving or watching war movies, Cortese said, and he hopes that hearing about war from people who have seen it will drive home its reality.

Students learn strategy, tactics of war, as well as the physical and intellectual toll on soldiers and what Cortese calls the "downward spiral of atrocity." The class focuses on the social history of the military rather than the institution itself, and this semester the focus is guerilla warfare and insurgency, he said.

This year, Cortese invited a group of international students participating in a year-long program funded by the U.S. State Department at Tompkins-Cortland Community College to the field trip.

The TC3 students didn't all react positively to the idea, he said.

"I took questions like, why would I want to meet soldiers? Soldiers do terrible things in my country," he said. "I was totally guilty of having a totally American view of the rest of the world and it blew up in my face."

Melinda Slawson, TC3 global education project coordinator, said the students in the program have disparate opinions of the U.S. military based on their home country and the way the Army is portrayed. The class includes students from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and countries scattered throughout the globe.

After explaining more about his plans for the trip, the students were more open to it, he said. Eight of the 22 international students decided to join Cortese's class on the trip.

Emmanuel Borlu, from Ghana, said his initial reaction to the proposition was revulsion toward weapons. However, Borlu said he felt more comfortable than he expected.

"I spoke with the soldiers, and they're really nice," he said. "They don't get irritated -- they answer any question we ask... Before (the trip), in my personal opinion, I had a very negative impression of the Army."

Henrique Torres, from Brazil, said because his country doesn't see much military conflict he had a much more positive idea of armies, and specifically the American military.

"Lots of students with negative reactions are from countries where the army has a negative influence," Torres said. "In Brazil we haven't had a problem with the U.S."

Sgt. Travis Barry said groups who visit the armory often have stereotypical ideas about soldiers.

"Then they see we're human beings, not monsters out there," Barry said.