What I Saw at the Deployment

Early this morning–and I mean early: from one to three a.m.–mom, sis, and I went on base to see baby bro off to his third deployment to the mideast. Ft. Stewart, GA, is the home of the Third Infantry, so there’s a lot of coming and going in the Hinesville area. When you add the quartermasters, MPs, artillery, etc. that accompany the “Rock of the Marne,” that’s a lot of soldiers.

It was cold and drizzling, so the group huddled together. A fenced area surrounded their personal rucks; the other duffels and packs had been loaded on separate trucks and already rested in the belly of the transport. I met more MPs from bro’s squad. Met some of their families. One man is leaving a wife and seven kids stateside. Another has two small boys who were clinging to his hands nearly the whole time. Young men, probably not much older than my students, held onto girlfriends wrapped like Velcro on their ACUs. We laughed, we traded stories, we remembered what it was like to be family, and close.

And then the buses arrived. The soldiers lined up, put on helmets and body armor, fell into companies and squads. Mothers and wives cried. Fathers encircled daughters with comforting arms below steely-eyed glares. Sons matched the stoic expressions of their parents. Families stood more closely together, trading assurances and comfort.

They marched by in a column of digitized camo, men and women headed to the mountains of Afghanistan from the pinewood flats of south Georgia. They know their jobs. They nod as they pass, acknowledging the tears and blessings. They drive off for long flights, stops to pick up more men in green, and uncertainty.

What I didn’t see: Representatives, Senators, or cabinet members. Not a damn one. Do you think if they were standing in the cold for their own family time, sending a son or daughter off to war, we’d have something else to do early in the morning on Valentine’s Day besides weep and pray for those we love?