Thread: Families Ready As Thousands of North Carolina Troops

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/1121119/

Families Ready As Thousands of North Carolina Troops Head Overseas in 2007

By ESTES THOMPSON
Posted: Today at 3:30 p.m.
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — For months, Maj. Larry Bauguess has crawled through the scrub brush of live-fire ranges and practiced storming terrorist hideouts as his brigade of 82nd Airborne paratroopers trained for an upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.
At the home of the Iraq war veteran, the preparation has been no less intense for his wife Wesley.
There's a binder for their girls, with a photo of President Bush - known around the home as "Daddy's boss" - and a world map with arrows pointing to Afghanistan and North Carolina: "Daddy will be here" and "Mommy, Ryann and Ellie will be here." The girls - blonde Ryann, 6, and brunette Ellie, 4 - are picking out coloring books and crayons to pack with their father's spare socks and body armor.
"We tried to explain to them that Daddy would be gone for every holiday one time and try to put that in perspective," Wesley Bauguess said. "This one will be interesting, because now they get the concept of what it means for him to be gone for a year."
It's a conversation taking place at homes across Fort Bragg, home of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. All four of the division's brigade combat teams are scheduled to serve in the Middle East and Afghanistan at some point in 2007.
It's no different a few hours east at Camp Lejeune, where two Marine regiments will ship out next year for western Iraq as the base's 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force takes command in the region. In all, tens of thousands of troops from North Carolina bases are scheduled to deploy overseas in 2007.
Their spouses and children will remain at home with an idea of when their loved ones will return, but also the knowledge that those dates could change at any time. The Pentagon has extended tours before, while some Democrats - now in control of Congress - are pushing for an immediate withdrawal.
"Lack of predictability is one of the challenges that can be most frustrating, yet we try to stay focused on what we can affect and let the things we can't affect sort themselves out," said 82nd commander Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez.
For the more than 17,000 paratroopers in the 82nd, which always has a unit on call that is prepared to deploy to a global flashpoint at a moment's notice, not knowing when that call might come is part of serving in the storied "All-American" division.
This week, the Pentagon unexpectedly ordered the division's 2nd Brigade to Kuwait, where they will stand in reserve - ready to move into Iraq should commanders there need extra forces. When the orders arrived, more than 500 of the unit's 3,300 paratroopers had been home from Iraq for less than three weeks.
Meanwhile, the division's 3rd Brigade is in Iraq and scheduled to return this summer, when it will be replaced by the division's 1st Brigade.
"It is hard to predict the future," Rodriguez said. "Our commitment is to train our paratroopers to answer the call."
Larry Bauguess, 35, is executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and his wife is a retired Army officer. They have lived on seven Army posts, and a plaque on the living room wall sums it up: "Home is where the Army sends us." She leads the 2nd Battalion's Family Readiness Group, which meets with commanders to work out problems and help those struggling with the stress of deployment.
"Our job is to handle the homefront," she said. "If the soldier in the field is worried about his family, he can't do his job. We're in this together."
But while the military parents acknowledge they signed up for life in the Army, they know their children did not. Amier "Ali" Dodd, 24, of Chesapeake, Virginia, will ship out with Bauguess as a member of the 508th. Back at Fort Bragg, his wife Lisa - a sergeant and combat medic in a helicopter brigade - will take care of the couple's newborn daughter, Alyssa.
"We try to go on business as usual and not really dwell on the fact that he'll be gone," Lisa Dodd said, cuddling her baby. "There's no point in wishing him gone while he is here."
Dodd, 26, expected to be deployed along with her husband, who will lead a three-man infantry team during his tour. Her mission was scrubbed after she became pregnant. Instead of training for Afghanistan, her focus shifted toward preparing to care for Alyssa without her husband's help.
"I will miss him the most when it is quiet at night," Lisa Dodd said. "That's our time together. When everything finally quiets down - the beagle is OK with enough attention so he can quiet down and the baby goes to sleep - that's when we can be together and talk, talk about the day and just enjoy spending time together.
"I'll be coming home and doing all that by myself, taking care of the kid and taking care of Brian the dog. That's when it will be the hardest, I think."
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

As the mother and friend of recently deployed soldiers, I marvel at how much they are left to their own devices, yet sacrifice is expected of them. At Ft. Bragg, some businesses preyed on soldiers, and my son's bank failed to keep up with the automated payment arrangements he set up, cratering his credit while he was away. Those deployed away from the larger bases often are hard up for basic px supplies like toothpaste. And they alternate between attacks on their lives and bone crushing boredom.

God bless them all and may they return safely.

Remember that these soldiers deploying in Iraq, many to keep the
bad guys out of the Green Zone & keep a constitutional government
functioning, leave their families in NC with 300,000+ illegal aliens.
Just like the bad guys in Iraq, these illegal aliens have no respect
for our government & its laws, along with their employers who have
no respect for our laws.

I am continually amazed these brave Americans keep upholding their
oath when so few others do.

Then again Bush doesn't have much time left to invade Iran.

This is a couple of quotes from a sort of flaky sounding story. Of course after listening to the government and the media for years, who's to say what the truth is.

It is an interesting explanation of what is happening and why. If you consider that the same group of people own nearly all of the politicians around the world it helps explain why they no longer listen to, we the people.


There are now only 5 nations on the world left without a Rothschild controlled central bank: Iran; North Korea; Sudan; Cuba; and Libya.

or

They also will use the attacks to gain control of the few nations in the world who don’t allow Rothschild central banks and so less than one month after these attacks, US forces attack Afghanistan, one of only 7 nations in the world who don’t have a Rothschild controlled central bank.


http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?id=4276