2-34 BCT Headquarters Departs for Camp Shelby

A standing-room crowd of family, friends, and other well-wishers gathered to celebrate and say farewell to the deploying soldiers of Headquarters and Headquarters Company (H.H.C.), 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division (2-34 B.C.T.) at the Boone Campus of Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) Friday morning, July 30.

Calling the soldiers of the 2-34 BCT "the finest troops on the planet Earth," Iowa Gov. Chet Culver urged those present to reach out to National Guard families during the brigade's 12-month deployment. "I think they will, because Iowans are at their best when we have a friend or neighbor in need," he said.

Army Brig. Gen. Timothy Orr, the Adjutant General of the State of Iowa, noted in his remarks that the town of Boone had seen many previous deployments. "And we've packed this place every time," he said. "That's indicative of the support of this community, and the surrounding communities, on the Iowa National Guard."

Citing an Iowa tradition with roots in the American Civil War, Orr presented Col. Ben Corell, commander of the 2-34 BCT, with an Iowa flag to fly over Afghanistan.

Soldiers marched in single file at both the open and close of the half-hour ceremony, accompanied by the bagpipes of the MacKenzie Highlanders. Other dignitaries present included John Slight, the Mayor of the Town of Boone, as well as field representatives of the U.S. Congressional delegation of Iowa.

Following the ceremony, soldiers loaded their bags onto commercial buses, and spent approximately an hour talking with friends and family before departing for Camp Shelby, Miss. The unit will train there and other stateside locations prior to movement to Afghanistan.

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For a listing of other send-off ceremonies of other brigade units by geographic location, click here.

For a listing of other send-off ceremonies of other brigade units by date, click here.

For a July 30 Des Moines Register interview with Col. Ben Corell, describing the background and context for the deployment, click here.

For a July 30 Des Moines Register blog post describing the activities of one HHC, 2-34 BCT family prior to the send-off ceremony, click here.

Achtung -- Panzer!

I had to say good-bye to Trooper the other day. He's moving out with one of advanced parties, tasked with setting up initial operations for the brigade headquarters. He doesn't get to participate in today's send-off ceremony. He's already on the job, down at Camp Shelby, Miss.

Guys don't do emotional moments very often, or well. Things end up either being left unsaid, or sounding like dialogue from a bad Mafia movie.

Trooper and I were on the same deployment back in 2003. We've seen and done some wacky stuff together. Take, for example, the time we hung out for hours drinking tea in a Middle Eastern hotel lobby, watching the people-scape change from day to night. The restaurant was closed, because of Ramadan, but Trooper had cracked the local hospitality code by ordering room service, and having it delivered to the registration desk. Stupid little insanities like that kept me sane, and Trooper made more than just a few of them happen.

In other words. Trooper is good people--for an Infantry guy.

Trooper reads people like books, and reads a lot of books, too. He's always joked that I should write the Great American novel about our Nothing Little Deployment to the Land of the Sand. I remind him--again and again and again--that I don't do fiction. I have a reputation for story-telling, but I am genetically incapable of making things up. I mean that.

"I'll see you on the flip side," I tell him this week, shaking his hand. In the afternoon sun of the U.S. Middle West, the parking lot is as stifling as our old Middle Eastern motorpool. I've just been reassigned--I'll tell you about that next week--and I don't know when I'm going to see him next. "I'm sorry I won't have your back on this one."

"Yeah, we would've made it fun somehow," he says. "If you ever do write that novel, you'll have to make me six-foot something, and chiseled. Chiseled like ... a Panzer commander."

And that's how he drove off: Into the sun, all dashing and chiseled and resolute, off to fight the Taliban. I can honestly say that he looked like a Panzer commander:

A tea-drinking Panzer commander, driving a Honda Civic.

The Waiting Games

It's hard enough for soldiers to understand the old "hurry up and wait." From Basic Training on, soldiers develop a tolerance for administrative bull-pucky and standing in lines and generally not knowing what's going on. Friends and family, however, grow impatient with a lack of easy and quick answers. Hurry up and wait doesn't translate very well to the civilian world.

Here's a little perspective:

As late as this week--in some cases, after months or years of preparation--I have friends who still don't know whether or not they're going to deploy. Some of them do know they're going to deploy, they just don't know what day they're supposed to get on the bus.

"Uh, Honey? I could be leaving next week. Or maybe tomorrow. They're still trying to figure out which bus I'm on ..."

It goes the other way, too: A couple of our soldiers were recently pulled off the deployment list, casualties of last-minute paperwork requirements and medical checks. One of them even found out that, instead of fighting the Taliban for the next year, he's going to be fighting cancer.

Other friends have just been transferred within the brigade, and don't know exactly when their "new" units' send-off ceremonies are scheduled. Even when dates and times are known, there can be worried questions. One wife asked mine whether she would be able to give her husband "one last hug" at the send-off, or whether the troops just all march off to the buses. She just wanted to know, so that she could prepare herself and her kids.

Those aren't complaints, mind you. That's just life in the military.

Thing is, our families aren't IN the military. Or, at least, they don't feel that they are, and they haven't had much opportunity to build up the jaded, sarcastic "all this has happened before" mental defenses of the common soldier.

It's a heck of a world when you have to tell your kindergartner to "man up."

Or your mom to "embrace the suck."

Clocks are ticking. Buses are on the way. Families? Families are doing the best they can. It's Mobilization Day, for some of us. The waiting is almost over--and it's about to begin.