FORT MILL -- The rain fell in sheets. So hard, it seemed to come sideways. Yet the words pierced through rain like bullets: “Load 'em up!” Just like 2003, heading for Iraq. Just like 2007, heading for Afghanistan. Just like every time the soldiers of the 1222nd Combat Engineers leave to go to war. Rain and tears.
That's what the men — and a couple women — in this National Guard unit do. They get their orders and they kiss their children, hug their spouses and get on buses and leave to where soldiers are dying.
Yet, Tuesday was different at the Fort Mill armory, a building so old it was built by Works Progress Administration tradesmen during the 1930s Depression. A building of concrete and old bricks and the toughest, bravest, best soldiers anybody ever saw. It was different because the soldiers leaving Tuesday were heading to Columbia to fly to Wisconsin for several weeks of training before leaving for Afghanistan.
Unlike 2003, or even 2007, when the war experience was newer, the separation fresher, like an open wound, just a few families were there Tuesday. This wound is old. It already has scars.
“My two girls are in school, didn't want to take them out today,” said Sgt. Eric Kimbrell. A guy so big and so tough, 20 years in the guard in this unit who went to both Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2007. “Hate to say it, but we been through this already. Twice. Too hard to do it a third time, have them here to see me leave.”
The tallest, largest, giant of a man in Fort Mill's unit is Sgt. Marion Ramsey. He hugged his daughter one last time before school, met his wife for a quick lunch. He came to the armory alone because his daughter and wife had sent him off twice before to wars, and there was no way Ramsey could let them stand in that rain and wave goodbye to him one more time.
Among the families who sent off soldiers was Cindy Horne and her two daughters, ages 3 and 1. Spc. Justin Horne was leaving for his third deployment in six years, and the little kids wanted to hug their daddy one last time.
“The kids are small, and he'll come home again,” Cindy Horne said.
“Damn right,” Spc. Justin Horne said.
Some other wives and kids came Tuesday. Bonnie Hoagland, who has a husband and two sons in the unit leaving, was there carrying the weight of America on the family's third deployment. If wives and mothers got Bronze Stars for patriotism, Hoagland gets more than any general.
But mainly soldiers, 56 of them in all, with the rest to make up 105 in the company waiting in Columbia, where families had driven them for the last kiss or touch or hug goodbye at the airport.
In Fort Mill on Tuesday, mainly it was solo soldiers. The two buses were late, so soldiers waited. They waited with the men who will serve under them, or they waited with the combat veterans who will bring them home. The rookies smoked, laughed and ordered pizza.
There was Private 1st Class Paul Geiter of Lancaster, 20 and married one month exactly. “My wife is home,” Geiter said. “Bawling. Crying. She's there with my 2-year-old son, Michael. I told him ‘Daddy's gotta go to work for a little while.'”
A little while is 18 months. In Afghanistan.
Spc. Jason Cook, 23, of Clover. First deployment. No family there. He smoked like a chimney. Spc. Billy Gunn, 21, of Clover with the guts to say he was a little nervous going off to his first war after the worst months of casualties since the war started. His fiancee was home in tears.
Spc. Bradley Benson, 27, of Lake Wylie. His first deployment. His eyes screamed: “War!”
The combat veterans laughed, but it was a quiet, hard-edged laugh that has no mirth. Spc. Adam Lerentz, 25, Afghanistan veteran. He said nothing. He waited with no one.
Spc. Blake Center of Fort Mill was pulled off the campus at Clemson University for the second time in three years. Center spoke about how he helped people the last deployment. He spoke of how he loves his country.
Andrew Dys 803-329-4065 adys@heraldonline.com
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