Sixteen members of the 1230th Transportation Company in Bainbridge have left for Camp Atterbury, Ind., where the South Georgia unit will begin the first leg of its deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The unit's main body will follow in two to three weeks.

1230th Transportation Units Begins
2nd War-Time Mobilization

Story by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry
Publlic Affairs Officer
Georgia National Guard

Bainbridge, March 22, 2007 – For the second time since war in Iraq began, Soldiers of Georgia’s 1230th Transportation Company are being deployed. This time, however, they won’t be pulling security duty in-state.

Sixteen members of the unit, including its commander, first sergeant and other senior leaders left this rural South Georgia Community are the advance party traveling to Camp Atterbury, Ind., where the 1230th will conduct 60 days of mobilization training for deployment to Camp Arifjon, Kuwait.

The 1230th’s main body, about 180 Soldiers, many of them  volunteers from other units from across the state, is expected to depart here for Atterbury around April 9.

This mission is going to be much different than the first, said Capt. Joshua Emerson, who commands the unit.

“The last time this group left home, was in 2003 to provide security at several different active duty and reserve military instillations around Georgia,” he said. “That deployment lasted for the better part of two years.

“This time, our Soldiers will move into Arifjon where they’ll be driving trucks and running supplies and personnel in and out of Kuwait and Iraq in support of Coalition and Iraqi forces,” he explained. “Expected time ‘over the pond’ is one year, but like anything else, that can change.”

Like all Soldiers, his are ready to “get to it,” and do what they trained for, and then get back to their families and their civilian jobs.

“These are all good people, who know what’s expected of them, and they’re ready to that, and more when asked,” Emerson said.

The 1230th, he said, is in his opinion one of the best transportation companies in the state, and they’ll get the job done --but that’s just his opinion, and his Soldiers, he said.

Among the less senior Soldiers of this first group is Sgt. Diana Meredith. Meredith, 21, is the unit’s admin specialist, and it’s her job to make sure pay, personnel records and the like are kept in order during training and throughout the deployment.

Although she’s been with the Guard for four years, this is her first war-time mission, and it’s one she’s just a bit apprehensive about, she said. “Of course I’m a little scared, I mean we’re going to a place where people most likely will try to hurt us,” Meredith said. “But I think the training we’ll get before we go will prepare us for that.”

As she said goodbye to members of her family, she noted that not all of them would be staying at home. Her 23-year-old brother Spc. John Meredith, a truck driver with the unit for the past four years, will follow along with the main body in April.

“Like Diana, I’m nervous, who wouldn’t be. But having someone whose close to me who’ll be going the same thing will make it, I believe, a bit easier to handle,” he said. “We’ll come home together. We will all come home from this.”

Such nervousness is to be expected, especially among younger Soldiers and those who have never been to war, related Iraq war veteran and the 1230th’s armorer Sgt. Susie Cotterell.

Cotterell, 46, saw duty at the beginning of the war as an armorer with Georgia’s 221st Military Intelligence Battalion out of Ellenwood when it deployed to Iraq. Although she said that going in harm’s way, living day-to-day with the threat of being shot at, is part of being a Soldier. “To tell someone not to be nervous is a bit crazy, but you (the veteran) help them, the young ones, the ones who have never been in such a situation see that they can handle it, and do what’s expected of them, of us all,” Cotterell explained. Someone who’s never been in the military may not understand that kind of thinking, she added, “but as Soldiers it’s our job. When it’s time to go, we back our bags, kiss our loved ones goodbye and get on the bus.”

And as she reassures those younger Soldiers that they’ll accomplish the mission with pride, she also instills in them that the time spent away from home will go by quickly, she said. Before they realize it, the job will be done, and they’ll be back in the arms of those they left behind.