Georgia Army National Guard Spc. Nicholas Curl hugs his girlfriend Jennifer Hall and mother Lori Curl during a welcome home ceremony for members of Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team at Fort Stewart near savannah. Also welcoming Curl home is Hall’s daughters Megan and Laura Hall and his nephew Colleen Curl. (Georgia National Guard photo by Pfc. Amanda Luksic)

A Journey To Remember

Story and photos by Pfc. Amanda Luksic
Georgia National Guard
Public Affairs Office

FORT STEWART, Friday, April 27, 2006 – For many Soldiers within the ranks of Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, the experience of being deployed, whether for humanitarian, peacekeeping or even war isn’t a new concept.

Most have, as the cliché goes, have “been there, done that and got the patch for it.”

For Spc. Nicholas Curl, a Warner Robins resident, the brigade’s yearlong deployment to war-torn Iraq, is his first, of any kind, any where.

Curl, a machinist with Kennesaw’s 277th Maintenance Company, is one of 10 Georgians who came home with Illinois’ Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry. The 130th is one of several out-of-state units to serve with the 48th BCT in Iraq.

“It’s not like I didn’t expect it, at some point, I just didn’t expect it to happen as soon as it did, with me coming to my unit straight from Advanced Individual Training,” said the Warner Robins resident.

Having grown up in a military family, his father was a career Marine, and living in a country fighting the Global War on Terrorism, a war-time deployment was something he was prepared for, he said. And so was his family, according to his mother Lori Curl.

“We didn’t want him to go, but we realized it would eventually happen,” she explained. “No one wants their son, or anyone else to live in harm’s way, yet we know that it goes with his being a Soldier and we, as his family, accepted that and supported him.”

The whole family is excited to have Curl back especially his nephew Colleen, said Lori Curl of her son. “Uncle Nick is his hero,” she said. “Colleen really looks up to him, and is proud of him as we all are.”

The Curl family isn’t the only one glad that he’s back.

His girlfriend Jennifer Hall and her daughters, Megan and Laura, were more than excited to see him, to hold him once again. Jennifer said she hadn’t eaten for two days because the thought of him finally being home thrilled her so.

Hall and Curl began dating while he was home Iraq for two weeks leave in March.
While there wasn’t much time for them to really get to know one another, Hall said, she knew there had been, and would be a change in him.

“Then, as now, he’s more self confident, much more patriotic,” said Jennifer. “He has a greater sense of duty, and puts a lot into who he is and what he does.”

Now that he’s home, Curl will spend two weeks at the National Guard Training Center making the transition from Soldier to civilian and back to National Guard status. Once that’s finished he’ll head back to Warner Robins and begin making up for lost time with his family, and with Hall and her daughters. As for what he may do beyond that, he has yet to decide, he said.

“Things are kind of up in the air right now,” Curl explained. “Having just graduated from AIT before we left, I didn’t have a job, so I know I’ll be looking for one at some point.

“I may even head to school and look for something that will prepare me for the future as a person and as a Soldier,” he said.

Right now, though, it’s time to let it all go and be with the ones he’s missed so much, at least for the time being, he said.

The last time Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team deployed was 2001 when an estimated 2,000 of its Soldiers took part in the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.

The yearlong deployment to Iraq sent approximately 4,000 Soldiers which was the largest combat unit of the Georgia National Guard to deploy since World War II.

Among the brigade’s accomplishments while in Iraq was the largest air mobile operation by any Army National Guard unit in history and the largest since major combat operations ceased. Soldiers of the 48th BCT were also the first to be issued and wear the new Army Combat Uniform and received their first Combat Action Awards since WWII during their deployment to Iraq.

The 48th BCT also created fiber optic networks extending from Camp Sather Air Force Base to Camp Stryker and laid more than 66,653 feet of fiber optic cable to connect the two camps.

Before deployment, the 48th Brigade spent four months training at Fort Stewart, including a month at the Army’s National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif., where its war-time skills were validated by active Army evaluators.

The 48th started its journey home April 18, and will continue to arrive at Fort Stewart until the end of May.

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