"We're actually looking forward to it," said Freeman, a 26-year-old commander from Cofield, N.C., who will make her second deployment with the 296th. "There's a positive feedback on this mission. It has been five years since we last deployed, and the soldiers are looking forward to being called up and doing their duty."
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The company will ship out this fall after the deployment of the National Guard's Company E, 106th Brigade Support Battalion, a Brookhaven-headquartered unit of the state's 155th Brigade Combat Team. Approximately 135 of Lincoln County's sons and daughters will join Operation Iraqi Freedom in the two deployments.
The late-2009 deployment will be the second one of the war for the 296th, which was in Iraq in 2003 when the battle was young. The company returned home in 2004.
Just as the war has changed in five years, so too has the 296th's mission. Freeman said the upcoming deployment will see the company engaging in heavy transport operations, whereas the unit has traditionally hauled bulk petroleum in medium trucks.
There's nothing medium about the company's new trucks. The men and women of the 296th will be using the Heavy Equipment Transport System (HETS), a massive truck and five-axle trailer system used to transport heavy, tracked vehicles like the M1 Abrams main battle tank.
The system's M1070 Truck Tractor weighs 20 tons, costs $1.7 million and its 500-horsepower diesel engine is capable of pulling a 70-ton load, Arrington said.
"We pretty much can transport anything the military has to offer with this unit," he said.
Freeman said the 296th will begin training to go to war with its new equipment within days.
The company will depart Brookhaven for a yellow ribbon ceremony in Moss Point on Saturday, and will fly to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin for pre-mobilization training on June 23. The company will transfer to Indiana's Camp Atterbury on July 9 for mobilization training.
"The mobilization training is what prepares you ultimately for theater operations," Freeman said.
Freeman acknowledged that convoy and transport operations - where soldiers face the hidden threat of roadside bombs - are now among the most dangerous missions in the 6-year-old Iraq War. But with top-notch training, armored vehicles and the experience of a huge veteran population within the unit, she said the troops of the 296th are undeterred.
"It's the mission first - adjust fire and drive on," Freeman said. "There is a level of uncomfort, but it ends the day we know what needs to be done. Around 90 percent of the unit are veterans ... and the comfort there is we have so much experience, so much to learn from one another."
Arrington said a handful of the large group of veterans have been deployed three times before. He said the veterans' experience goes beyond just know-how and translates to wisdom.
"The veterans know each deployment has its own definition, its own face," he said. "When they talk, they say, 'Look, we can't treat this like the last conflict. We had to adjust.' They can be flexible and adjust to the current battle rhythm, and we have to be able to do that. When you look at the news, every day there's something new with Al Qaeda."
Arrington said the 296th is "ahead of the pack," and the soldiers' confidence is tangible.
"The Army Reserve is the best job in the world," said Sgt. 1st Class Stacey Reeves, an Army Reserve career counselor. "Don't forget about 9/11. It's real; it did happen."
