Pride, tears as reservists called to duty

Douglas Kish knows that his father is taking a long trip to Iraq but, at age 7, he isn’t sure what a soldier’s stay means in terms of kid-years.

“He was asking, ‘How old will I be when Dad gets back?’ I told him, ‘You will be 9,’ ” said Michelle Kish, Douglas’ mother and wife of Master Sgt. Michael Kish, an Idaho Guardsman being deployed for the second time in two years.

“It’s always tough. I just keep the big picture in my mind,” Michael Kish said. “Although we’re leaving our families, we’re really helping other people.”

Hundreds of mothers, fathers, siblings and friends throughout the region marked the Saturday of Independence Day weekend by sending off 900 members of the Idaho Army National Guard’s 116th Cavalry Brigade. The reservists departed from airfields in Lewiston, Idaho Falls, Pocatello and the West Plains of Spokane County. They are among 2,000 Idaho National Guardsmen recently called to duty.

The soldiers are traveling to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, for training and will be deployed to Iraq later this year in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Kish was one of 107 men and women departing from the Washington National Guard’s Geiger Field early Saturday morning. Inside the hangar, soldiers and families listened to a presentation praising their commitment and sacrifice for their country.

Men, women and children clung to a last few minutes together as the plane that would shuttle their loved ones away for nearly two years – including perhaps 1 1/2 years in Iraq – rumbled in the background. Melancholy heartache melded with patriotic pride as families snapped photographs with their uniformed soldiers.

“You read about it in the paper, but it doesn’t really sink in until you’re one of them and you see that these are real people with real families,” said Mark Varela, who was saying goodbye to a new son-in-law.

Many found there was no easy way to mentally prepare for separation and war.

“I guess that everybody has a different way of preparing for this kind of thing. We tried to spend as much time together as possible,” said Kathy Bough, who was bidding farewell to her husband, Spc. Gary Bough. “I take it one day at a time. We were counting the days until he was going to leave, and now we’re down to counting the number of days until he comes back.”

Troops get two weeks of leave during each year of deployment and Spc. Bough’s stepson, Evan Barone, was trying to calculate when his stepfather would visit.

“Hopefully, he’ll be home for the football season so he can watch me play,” said Evan Barone, 15, a defensive lineman for Coeur d’Alene High School.

Varela watched his daughter wed and saw his new son-in-law depart in less than 24 hours.

Varela’s daughter Leslie wed Spc. Chris Burnett, 20, at a civil ceremony at the Roosevelt Inn in Coeur d’Alene, on Friday night. The two, sweethearts since they were 15, had planned on a traditional Catholic wedding, but Chris’ call to duty changed their wedding plans.

“We’ve been talking about it for a long time, so we just sped it up a bit. We’ll have a bigger church wedding when he comes back,” said Leslie Burnett.

Mark Varela said many of life’s moments will be put on hold for the family.

“Your whole life stops for 1 1/2 years,” Varela said.

Families pledged to pray and send photos, letters and home videos and to converse using cell phones and e-mail. Some reservists packed cell phones and laptop computers with their clothing. Younger reservists socked away Play Stations and X-Boxes.

Syndee Gage arranged for her son, Pfc. Travis Gage, 19, to have mobile-to-mobile cell phone service in hopes of bridging the two continents, one ocean and 6,734 miles that will soon divide them.

“I can’t even imagine years ago when they didn’t have the technology that we have nowadays,” said Gage.

Sleep was a rare commodity leading into Travis’ departure, an unwanted pattern that’s likely to continue while he serves in Iraq.

Angie Pruczinski wanted to support her nephew, 18-year-old Spc. Tracy Gordon.

“He has been wanting to do this since he was a little kid” and admired an uncle who was a soldier, Pruczinski said.

While it comforted Pruczinski that Gordon has two close friends among the soldiers, she was dismayed that so many young men from Coeur d’Alene are leaving for faraway battle zones.

“It just seems weird,” she said.

Eric Will, 34, said goodbye to his 9-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son one month ago, when he left Coeur d’Alene for engineering training required before he could ship out Saturday.

“They took it pretty rough. At first they didn’t understand why their dad had to leave them,” said Will, a single dad whose mother is taking care of the kids.

Military service is richly engrained in Will’s history. “I have family who served in all the wars, and it’s my turn to carry on the tradition.”

Those being sent away Saturday are aware of the dangers they’ll soon face.

“A word of advice to everyone staying behind is to live your life to the fullest because you never know when it’s going to end,” Will said.

As soldiers moved toward the plane, a flood of emotion erupted, leaving children clinging to parents and some adults sobbing.

Master Sgt. Renee Teston, who works at Geiger, said watching troops depart is always heart-wrenching. She has 22 years of military experience, and her husband also is in the military.

“I’ve been on both sides of this; as the one that’s shipping out and the one staying behind while my husband ships out,” she said. “Neither one is easy.”