Members of the 34 Family Readiness groups, representing the units the make up Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, recently completed the last leg of their “Walk to Baghdad.”
When it was all said and done, the walkers had totaled an estimated 15,447.01 miles, said Joni Bennett, the brigade’s Family Readiness Group Coordinator. 

The walk, which had been in progress for the past eight months, was a way for families and friends of the 48th BCT to honor Georgia’s Soldiers as they continue their yearlong deployment in Iraq. Its other goal was to provide families an outlet for dealing with the anxiety such a war-time deployed can bring, besides allowing them the opportunity to achieve personal fitness goals.

“The response from our families for this event was just incredible,” said “This project gave us all a way to channel our energies and focus on something positive, and our families enthusiastically jumped at the chance to take part.  

“Many of us can't wait to show off our trimmer, more physically fit versions to our soldiers, and we have developed a new walking habit that we plan to continue with our soldiers once they return.” 

It was from Savannah’s Hunter Army Airfield that the BCT left for Iraq last May. When the walk began, the family readiness goal was to walk the distance from Savannah as a group to Baghdad, where the brigade began its support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"When Staci Mincey, the Family Readiness Group chairperson for Alpha Company,148th Forward Support Battalion, first brought this idea to me, I thought we might walk as brigade families from Hinesville to Baghdad,” Bennett said. “I was completely wrong because we ended up walking from Hinesville to Baghdad, back to Hinesville and more.”

The remaining distance was completed at the Savannah Mall on Abercorn Street, with the last lap being walked by the family members of the 26 brigade Soldiers who have so far lost their lives in Iraq.

Event participants walked as many laps as they chose to. Registered walkers wore a number which bore the name of the soldier they walked in honor of or in memory of. They also filled out postcards for the soldiers or for their families. Those were later sent to the soldier or his family.

Rankings for the Walk to Baghdad are:

 Most Miles Walked in Honor of a Soldier:

 · 2,125.5 miles in honor of Robert Hodgson, Sr.

 Most Miles Logged at Individually held FRG Walks to Baghdad:

 · Charlie Company/648th Engineers

 FRGs who held their own Walk to Baghdad Event:

 · Bravo Company/108th Armor in Canton

 Most Miles Overall Submitted from an FRG:

 · Alpha Company/1-121 IN  3,700 miles