Fathers leave behind families as local unit leaves today for Iraq

By Jean Cole
jean@athensnews-courier.com

ATHENS June 20, 2009 08:09 pm

— As Patrick Buckelew prepares to ship out for Texas and then Iraq this Father’s Day, he worries that his 2 1/2 year old son, Hudson, will forget him during his yearlong absence.
The 35-year-old Hartselle man is among 78 members of the 203rd Military Police Battalion from Athens – many of them fathers – who will have to learn to live without the ones they love for the next year.
They will have to learn to live without the wife who sleeps next to them at night.
The toddler who shrieks with delight when daddy comes home.
The teenage daughter who lives on the telephone.
The teenage son who will fill dad’s shoes.
The parents who try to mask their worry.
“This is my first deployment,” said Buckelew, an Army National Guard soldier who works as an environmental technician for NASA. “I’m nervous and anxious – all the above. My son – that’s the toughest part. I have a Web cam, so I will be able to see him and talk to him. But I worry about my son not remembering me when I get back. I’ll miss watching him grow.”
He also worries about his wife, Kim, having to take care of everything on the home front, including Hudson.
“I am blessed to have such a strong wife to take care of things at home,” he said. “I am very fortunate that my family and her family have a military background.”
Jimmy Black of Moulton, who will serve as chaplain with the 203rd, can’t imagine a year away from his wife, Sandra; 17-year-old son, Christopher; and 13-year-old daughter, Katelyn.
He wonders how they will manage.
“I am a schoolteacher at Courtland and I also run a farm with 20-head of cattle,” Black said. “My son will be in charge of them while I’m gone.”
Mainly, he wonders how he will manage missing them.
“I’m sorry I will have to miss my son’s high school graduation – we are very close,” Black said. “I will miss my daughter, too. She likes school ... and talking on the telephone,” he joked.
At 9:30 a.m. today, these two dads will cry and kiss goodbye the ones who will be waiting impatiently for their return next June.
By 10:30 a.m., the unit – which also includes a few women soldiers – will board a bus to Huntsville International Airport.
Later today, the battalion will fly to Fort Bliss, Texas, where they will train for six more weeks.
Then their true mission begins.
In early August, they will head to Basra, Iraq, to secure Iraqi police stations and oversee convoy and weapons training for police officers so they can take over when U.S. forces leave.
“After today, there will only be 363 days left in our tour,” Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Slaten of Athens joked as he prepares for the deployment ceremony at Beasley Field on Friday. Kevin, 45, will supervise maintenance personnel in Iraq. He seems more at ease with his assignment than some of the younger soldiers. For one thing, he will be “inside the wire,” he said, meaning in a safer position than those forward. For another, he has already served tours in Saudi Arabia in 2001 and in Germany in 2007. Plus, serving his country seems to be in his blood. He hails from a military family that has accrued 153 years (and counting) of military service since 1947. Kevin’s dad, Army Master Sgt. Raymond Slaten, is a Korean War veteran and retired Army National Guard. Kevin’s brother, Danny, as well as his brothers-in-law, Tom Perry and Tommy Sprague, and his nephews, Eric Sprague and Nathaniel Buddy Slaten, are all military men.
Kevin said he will miss his wife, Tammy, a second-grade teacher at Cedar Hill Elementary School; his 23-year-old daughter Whitney Williams; and his 22-year-old daughter, Katie Slaten. He jokingly dismissed the thought of them missing him.
“As soon as I leave, the party will begin,” he said.
His sense of humor will make it easier for his family as they try to carry on without him.
Raymond wonders if his son’s departure would be easier for a father who hadn’t seen war before.
“It probably would because I know what can happen,” Raymond said.
While serving in Korea from 1951 and part of ’52, Raymond was among 160 soldiers in the 1343rd C Company whose job it was to build roads and bridges and keep supply lines open. He joined the Alabama National Guard in 1947 and was deployed to South Korea from 1951 through part of ’52. He served as a truck driver and heavy-equipment operator, earning four battle stars before returning home.
“We worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week but we were prepared to fight at any time,” Raymond said. “We were trained so that if the enemy appeared, you aim your M1 and start killing.”
As Kevin prepares to ship out, Raymond tries not to invest in worry because it doesn’t pay off.
“My wife, Mildred, don’t think much of it because they have to go to Iraq, but I tell her worrying won’t help nothing. I try not to worry. But if people drive up in the yard and say he was killed in action, that would kill me.”
Instead, Raymond offers his son practical advice.
“If told him if he gets in a real tight place, get him (the enemy) before he gets you,” he said. “I also told him you’ve got to be aware of what is going on around you.”
When the bus leaves today, Raymond’s advice – as a father and a veteran – will have to give way to that of Lt. Col. Charles Buxton, who will head the operation in Iraq.
“For some, this is their first deployment but a fair portion of them are not green folks,” Buxton said as the 203rd practiced for the deployment ceremony Friday. “Some are nervous and some are nervously excited.”
As their commander, he is not nervous about them.
“They are well-trained,” he said, with the confidence you want to see in a leader.
Later Friday, before the hundreds who gathered to send off the troops, Buxton promised the family members he would not risk their lives unnecessarily.
The father soldiers of the 203rd are counting on it.
They plan to be home for the next Father’s Day.

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