Joe Roche

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See also Joe Roche, Editor at ArtRocker magazine.

Joe Roche was a columnist at the Minnesota Daily student newspaper at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus. A native of Minnesota, Roche began writing for the Minnesota Daily in the mid-1990s. Roche was an accomplished writer who was known for his controversial editorials. His fiery style of writing and conservative political views were controversial, especially on the left-leaning University of Minnesota Campus. Roche frequently aimed his barbs at liberals and the Clinton administration, and he used his pen to defend Republicans. Despite the controversy surrounding him, Roche won the Minnesota Daily’s Harrison Salisbury Annual Achievement Award in 2005.

Roche was a strong advocate for toppling the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. In 2002 Roche joined the United States Army as an enlisted soldier in anticipation of the war in Iraq, and his unit was one of the first to be deployed in the war in 2003. Roche served one year in Baghdad as humvee driver, where he won the accolades of his fellow soldiers. Roche’s editorial “Keep the faith - we are, the Iraqi people are,” written while in the field in Iraq, was widely printed in the conservative press, read on air by Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show host radio, and was quoted by President Bush at the Republican National Convention of 2004