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Tuesday, October 19, 2004
16 Army reservists expect to fight in Iraq
By AUDREY PARENTE | News-Journal Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH — At dawn, soldiers sweat through sit-ups, push-ups and other rigorous calisthenics. Before noon, they cover many miles in their military Humvees.
The 16 local Army reservists are training for war this week.
The 559th Transportation Detachment is about to complete training at the Armed Forces Reserve Center on Basin Street.
On Monday, they will board a bus to Fort Benning, Ga., to get final orders, while their Humvees are transported there by flatbed truck.
The 13 men and three women ages 18 to 49 don’t know what their assignment will be, but they assume it will be overseas.
“Soldier’s orders only reflect Operation Noble Eagle, Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom,” said Maj. William Ritter of the 81st Regional Readiness Command in Birmingham, Ala., which controls units in eight states, including Florida.
Ritter said about 47,000 of the 168,000 active reserve forces are in the Army — about 1,100 of those from Florida.
“Orders don’t say where the soldiers will be serving. Soldiers could be mobilized for Iraqi Freedom and work in Kuwait, Turkey or Germany,” Ritter said.
One of the newly deployed soldiers, Staff Sgt. Kyle Helmsderfer, 35, of Port Orange served five years in the full-time Army infantry, including a stint in Desert Storm in 1990. The Ohio native got out of active duty in 1999, then joined the reserves.
His green eyes match his camouflage fatigues. His hair is so short his scalp shines through. He keeps his politics to himself, but he expects he will be heading to Iraq.
"The decision on how we got there in the first place is so far above us that it becomes really irrelevant in the whole big picture," Helmsderfer said. "Regardless of what your personal politics are, once you are in the uniform, you raise your hand and swear to do what you are ordered. You go and do the mission until you are brought home."
Helmsderfer said he'll go off to war willingly, but the deployment has disrupted his life.
"It's a little nerve-racking," he said, "but I am excited to be back in the uniform and doing what I love again. Yet going where you can lose your life or be beheaded is scary. If you don't have some butterflies, you are not alive emotionally."
A divorced father with custody of three daughters, Helmsderfer has sent his girls back to Ohio to live with their mom. His current wife, Lyndie, said she would continue working at a jewelry store in New Smyrna Beach.
"I am mostly worried, as any family member would be, about his safety and welfare," she said. "He's in it for life and proud to defend our country, but it's mostly the separation and having to be worried on a daily basis when you are going to communicate and how long it is actually going to be — from a year to 18 months."
Also being deployed with the 559th is Pfc. David Zeek, a 2004 Deltona High School graduate who joined the service this year. This is his first assignment.
"I began drilling here with about eight people in June, and they said maybe we were going," Zeek said. "By September they said we were definitely going. I am nervous, of course, but everybody I see who has a combat badge on his arm comes back with respect. It's what I want."
Zeek will leave dozens of friends and family behind, including his girlfriend, Brittany McKelvy, 18, a 2004 Deltona High graduate now attending Seminole Community College.
She is a little upset.
"There's nothing I can do or say. I hope that I can at least keep in contact with him, and most of all that he is safe," said Brittany in a phone interview. "He has to go. It's his job, just like I have to do mine, but I hope this doesn't separate us. I think it will make us stronger."
In charge of the unit is Capt. Greco Carreras, 41, a New York native with 20 years' military experience, including deployment during Desert Storm.
"The actual unit is a highway regulation unit," he said. "Our detachment will be used on the roads, monitoring convoys at border crossings and assisting convoys."
Carreras, who had a military job in Boston, came here for the three weeks' training with his unit. He has a twin brother serving in the Army at Fort Bragg, N.C., and his mom and sister live in Atlanta.
"The important things to me are my friends and my family," he said. "And I definitely appreciate things here because of the times I have been deployed."
One soldier who came here from North Carolina, Joseph Kennedy, 27, will soon say goodbye to his wife and a 3-year-old daughter.
"I joined the reserves in '98 and wasn't married then," Kennedy said. When the war on Iraq began, he expected to be deployed, but that doesn't mean the going is easy.
"We have had time to try to get our things in order and get used to it, but there is going to be an adjustment for everyone involved. I am a little nervous," he said.
"We have a good group of people and everybody in the unit gets along. It will be an experience, and I really don't know what to say, except I will keep in touch with my family and that will help — definitely."
Kennedy said his family will be coming to Daytona Beach on Sunday for a farewell party planned by a local Family Readiness Group before he departs with the other soldiers on the bus for Georgia.
The public is invited to the Armed Forces Reserve Center on Basin Street at 7 a.m. Monday to see the soldiers off.
"There is a job we have to do, and I am ready to get it done, and I have brought pictures of my family with me. And I want to make sure my wife shows my daughter plenty of pictures of me while I'm gone," he said.
His voice strained as he added: "Hopefully we will have a good mission, and I will be home soon."