By: BILL JONES/Staff Writer
Source: The Greeneville Sun
01-17-2005

Nine more National Guardsmen from Northeast Tennessee who were being called to active duty early Sunday morning bid farewell to their families at the Greeneville National Guard Armory.

No Greene County residents were among the citizen-soldiers from 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment units in this region who boarded a Greene Coach Tours bus bound initially for a National Guard training center near Nashville about 6:45 a.m. Sunday.

A spokesman at Tennessee National Guard headquarters in Nashville had said last week that about 60 278th ACR soldiers who had been left behind when the main body of 278th troops were sent to Kuwait last fall were being called up on Sunday.

Nate Crawford, the National Guard spokesman, said on Friday that the National Guardsmen who left Northeast Tennessee on Sunday will eventually join 278th units that are deployed in Iraq.

Dwight Carr, a National Guard retiree who now works as a “readiness technician” at the Greeneville National Guard Armory, said those who boarded the bus in Greeneville on Sunday were from 278th Armored Cavalry units in Bristol, Erwin, Morristown and Pigeon Forge.

Staff Sgt. Alvin Jackson, a supply sergeant, who was returned to the Greeneville National Guard Armory last fall from Camp Shelby, Miss., because of medical problems and now helps with administrative duties there, also was present Sunday morning to help hand out written orders and make up a roster of departing soldiers.

‘Gets Harder Every Time’

“This is the fourth one of these departures I’ve had to work with, and I think it gets harder every time,” Jackson said as the departing soldiers and about 25 family members waited in the predawn darkness for the bus to leave.

Carr, who said he spent more than 30 years in the National Guard, much of it with Greeneville-based Troop G of the 278th, remarked that he no longer liked to hear the sound of a bus engine.

He noted that three more National Guardsmen from Troop G are expected to depart Greeneville in similar fashion in coming weeks. Once those soldiers depart, he said, no members of Troop G, other than Staff Sgt. Jackson, will remain in Greeneville.

On Sunday morning, the departing National Guardsmen and their families clustered in small groups as they waited.

Some sought warmth inside the armory. Others remained outside, seemingly unmindful of the morning chill.

Among those waiting were Sgt. 1st Class Bill Bradley, of Erwin, and several members of his family.

Bradley said Sunday marked his second departure for active duty. He noted that he had left home the first time last Fathers Day when the main body of 278th ACR soldiers departed their home communities for training at Camp Shelby, Miss.

While at Camp Shelby, Bradley said, he suffered a back injury and returned home for medical treatment. Now that his back had healed, he said, he was returning to active duty.

‘Goodbyes Don’t Get Easier’

“The goodbyes don’t get any easier,” he said.

Nearby, Sgt. James Bailey, also from Erwin, and his wife engaged in a long embrace.

When the call to board the bus came, family members stood in silence as the National Guardsmen climbed aboard.

The wife of one of the departing soldiers clutched her young daughter after receiving a departing hug from her husband.

Illuminated by the the headlights of the bus, she pulled the child to her as she watched her husband climb aboard.

Moments later, as the bus was preparing to back from its parking space, a car rushed into the parking lot, and a young soldier leaped out and climbed aboard the bus.

Carr and Jackson said later that someone who had agreed to drive the young soldier to the armory had failed to show up and that he had to find a ride at the last minute.

Moments later, the bus left the parking lot, taking the nine National Guardsmen on the fist step of a journey that likely will end in Iraq in a few weeks.

Last Friday, a National Guard spokesman said the latest group of soldiers to be called to active duty would undergo training at Camp Shelby for a few weeks before being sent to Kuwait before joining units already serving in Iraq.

Story Copyright to The Greeneville Sun