Soldiers' families send them off

About 200 in Guard unit en route to Texas, then Kuwait

Spc. Katie Tippin and her husband, Michael, say goodbye Friday as members of the Army National Guard’s 77th Combat Aviation Brigade head from North Little Rock to Fort Hood, Texas, for deployment training. It’s Tippin’s first deployment.
Spc. Katie Tippin and her husband, Michael, say goodbye Friday as members of the Army National Guard’s 77th Combat Aviation Brigade head from North Little Rock to Fort Hood, Texas, for deployment training. It’s Tippin’s first deployment.

In the last minutes leading up to the ceremony that marked the beginning of a nine-month deployment, a girl ran, a blur of a blue skirt parting a sea of camouflage, to give her father another hug.

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Members of the Arkansas National Guard’s 77th Combat Aviation Brigade wait for a farewell ceremony to begin Friday at Camp Robinson in North Little Rock before they head to Fort Hood, Texas, for deployment training.

Her father, Michael Weaver, was one of the approximately 200 members of the Arkansas National Guard's 77th Combat Aviation Brigade who boarded five white buses in North Little Rock on Friday on the way to Fort Hood, Texas. This was the first part of a trip that will take the group to Kuwait and other parts of the Middle East.

A group of 40 soldiers left Camp Robinson on May 10 to lay the groundwork for the larger group. They have been doing things such as ensuring there is sufficient space in the barracks for everyone to sleep, Lt. Col. Joel Lynch said.

"If you show up at Fort Hood with no preparations made, it's just a mess," Lynch said.

Before going to Kuwait, the soldiers will complete the last of three phases of training at Fort Hood, which should take 45 to 60 days, Gen. Gregery Bacon said.

When they reach the Middle East, they will be a part of a security cooperation among several countries that are working to establish stability in the region, Col. Ryan Pace said.

This is a piece of a partnership the United States has reached with Kuwait, according to a National Guard news release.

Brittney Carter-Davis is a mechanic, and this is her first deployment. She said she comes from a family with a long history of military careers.

"I have a lot of mixed emotions," Carter-Davis said. "I'm kind of excited and kind of nervous."

She said the bad thing about her departure is that she is leaving behind her 5-year-old daughter, Jada, who clung to her mother's neck while she waited to board the bus to Texas.

"That's the worst part about it, is missing a whole year of her life," Carter-Davis said. "I'm missing a lot of firsts, like kindergarten."

Unlike Carter-Davis, Michael Weaver and his family are not newcomers to this cycle. This is his fourth deployment. The most recent was in 2010, and was the first one his daughter, Delaney Weaver remembers. She was a baby for the first one and three years old during the second.

"We're going to miss him, but we've been through this before," said Heather Weaver, Michael Weaver's wife of 14 years.

The couple has two children -- Delaney, who is going into the sixth grade, and David, who will start high school in the fall.

Michael Weaver is a pilot and a safety officer, which means he oversees the well-being of the rest of the troops, he said.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., thanked the soldiers during the ceremony.

"You play such an important role in our nation," he said.

Westerman also spoke about how he and his staff members would provide support for the wife and three children of one his employees, who was deployed with the brigade. He encouraged other employers to do the same.

Heather Weaver said that during her time as a military wife, she has made friends from all over the country and gets support from them and her mother and sisters who live nearby.

"Whether it's four or five troops or 200, there's that many families who are going to have to have a little different support system," Lynch said.

The brigade that departed Friday was one of the larger groups sent from North Little Rock. Most deployments last about a year, Lynch said.

The Camp Robinson headquarters has troops in Central America and will soon send about 20 soldiers to Guantanamo Bay to take photographs and run social media accounts. A group will also head across the Atlantic Ocean to Africa next year, Lynch said.

After hugs were given and pictures were taken, the buses rolled out under a slight drizzle, alongside a line of onlookers waving miniature flags.

The Weavers walked out to their car to begin the two-hour drive back home and the nine-month wait for Michael Weaver to be home again.

Metro on 05/28/2016

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