01/03/09 — CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS — As the dozens of area families squeezed in a few more precious moments together Friday morning at the Pennsylvania National Guard readiness center and field maintenance shop in Cambridge Springs, Maj. Timothy J. Foor Sr. coordinated their departure to make certain the group arrived at Fort Indiantown Gap “ready to roll.”
After four months of intensive training, “ready” was the buzz word that all seemed to agree would ensure the success of their mission and a safe late-summer return trip home.
“We’ve been well-trained,” said Foor, battalion executive officer. “Our mission is to help the Iraqi government during its transition, to help train its military and to support any operations that will neutralize insurgent activity.”
Foor said the hundreds of area men and women will soon be replacing troops who have been involved in an existing operation and those replaced troops will soon be heading home. In all, he said the 56th Brigade is comprised of 4,000 men and women, many of whom have trained day-in and day-out for the past four months.
Following their brief but much-appreciated holiday break, the 160 men and women are returning to Fort Indiantown Gap. After training there, the group will move to Fort Dix, N.J., to complete their final state-side training before the 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry, 56th Stryker Division reaches its final destination in February: Iraq.
“We have to be regimented,” Foor said. “We will check and recheck our equipment daily, and throughout the rigorous training and repetition, our minds and bodies must work together; we shouldn’t have to think, just react.”
Capt. Steve Huckaby, officer in charge of the Readiness Center in Cambridge Springs, agreed that preparedness was essential, but added that flexibility was also a crucial factor. All have undergone a wide range of training scenarios, he said, and because of that intensive preparation, he felt secure that despite the plans being in a constant state of flux, things would go well.
Families who gathered at the Cambridge Springs facility also were confident.
“My biggest fear is that I will be bored,” said Sgt. Samuel Moses, who works in communications. “I recognize that there will be danger — there always is that element when you are at war in a foreign country — but our role is more to watch over the Iraqi troops who will be taking a more active role.”
While Moses has been deployed in the past to Panama in 1989, Iraq in 1990, and Liberia in 1991, this time around things are quite different. His departure this time will leave behind his wife, Tammy, and two children, Tayler, 12, and Anthony, 8.
But unlike many other wives, Tammy is a 12-year Navy veteran herself, which is both a blessing and a curse. He said she is strong woman and “will be alright,” but, at the same time, she “knows all too well the dangers.”
As the troops left Cambridge Springs, Tammy said now all they could do was pray for their safe return and wait. She chose a non-traditional way of keeping track of the time.
“Twenty pay days; we’ve got it down-pat,” she said. “It’ll pass before we know it.”
It may be an unorthodox way to approach and cope with the separation, but for right now it seems to be the family’s best solution. While Moses is in Iraq tracking communications, she said her husband would miss his daughter officially becoming a teenager. And while he promised her a shopping trip, judging by the way she hung tightly onto her father’s arm, a trip to the mall to fill her closets would be a poor substitute for the 12-year-old.
While Moses and other members of the Stryker Brigade continue their training, neither Foor nor Huckaby would comment on how the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza strip may affect their mission.
“Our mission was handed down a long time ago,” Huckaby said, “but as of right now, only our in-country location (city) may change.”
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