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reprint or license thisBittersweet send-off for S.C. Guard unit
By CHUCK CRUMBO
ccrumbo@thestate.com
MARION — Hugs, tears and flags.
All were present and accounted for Wednesday morning as some 500 people stood in a persistent drizzle to say goodbye to their soldiers, bound for Afghanistan.
“It’s going to be difficult,” said Latonya Eaddy, bracing for her husband of just two weeks, Sgt. Derrick Eaddy, to leave. “All I can do is hope and pray for the best.”
Sgt. Eaddy joined about 200 members of the S.C. National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 263rd Armor Regiment, as they left for Camp Shelby, Miss., a National Guard training base.
The soldiers make up an advance party of the Guard’s 218th Infantry Brigade, on notice to deploy another 1,600 soldiers to Afghanistan in the spring.
Wednesday’s farewell was held outside the battalion’s A Company armory just as dawn’s early light seeped through a heavy overcast.
Huddling beneath umbrellas, loved ones listened to commanders and the unit’s chaplain offer words of encouragement and best wishes to the troops.
The farewell was poignant, too, for National Guard leaders who have served and worked with many of the troops for years.
“You’re just not saying good-bye to your soldiers but also to your friends,” said. Brig. Gen. Bob Livingston, commander of 218th.
The troops will spend about two months at Camp Shelby training for their duties in Afghanistan. They are expected to leave for that country sometime in January. The rest of the brigade is expected to deploy overseas in spring.
Although the battalion is equipped to operate with M1A1 tanks and mortars, it will be using armored Humvees to get around in Afghanistan. That’s something the unit’s tankers will have to get used to.
“We really like to have tons of steel around us,” said Lt. Col. Steve Wright, battalion commander. “We get a lot of confidence being in our tanks.”
But the unit’s mission won’t require tanks.
Instead, the troops will provide security for U.S. military members training the Afghan National Army, escort convoys and carry out combat operations, Wright said.
Afghanistan, though, seemed a long way — literally and figuratively — to the folks who watched their soldiers get the red-carpet treatment before boarding buses for the Myrtle Beach airport.
Eula Cronk, mother of 25-year-old Spc. Marc Rider, marked the occasion by wearing a red, white and blue shirt with a U.S. flag design on the front.
Although her son will be gone for more than a year, Cronk beamed as she talked about him being in the Guard. “I’m so proud that my son wants to be in the service and fight for his country.”
Daniel Williams Hayes Sr. also did his best to whip up some patriotic fervor by handing out small U.S. flags.
“They were needed,” said Hayes, whose 21-year-old son, Pvt. Daniel Hayes Jr., was preparing to leave with the battalion.
Wednesday’s departure was something of a surprise for the Hayes family. Teresa Hayes said her son, who graduated two months ago from basic training at Fort Knox, Ky., had planned to enroll in college before the call-up.
Despite the sudden change in plans, Teresa Hayes said her son understood. “ ‘Mama, it’s my job; it’s my duty,’” she said, quoting her son.
The call-up also prompted some to move up plans.
David and Jamie Gunsallus went ahead and got married Oct. 1 instead of waiting until he returned from Afghanistan.
“It was time to get married,” Jamie Gunsallus said. “I had held out long enough.”
The call-up also forced Cronk’s son to put his college education on hold — again.
In 2003, when he started at Coastal Carolina University, Rider was deployed for a homeland defense mission, Cronk said. He would have been a senior this year.
“He’s going back when he returns home,” she said. “I’m confident everything will be OK. The Army has been good for him.”
Reach Crumbo at (803) 771-8503.
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