Last modified: Monday, December 22, 2008 10:17 AM PST Soldiers in Company E of the 120th Combined Arms Battalion in the North Carolina National Guard’s 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team file into an auditorium during their mobilization ceremony in Hamlet, N.C., Nov. 16. The unit is preparing for another tour in Iraq. N.C. town fights fears as its troops deploy again By KEVIN MAURER and MITCH WEISS Associated Press EDITOR’S NOTE — The 30th Heavy Brigade of the North Carolina National Guard returns to Iraq next year, including the 76 combat engineers of E Company. Most of them are from Hamlet, a close-knit community long abandoned by the good jobs that made it a prosperous railroad town. The Associated Press is following several members of E Company and their loved ones in an occasional series. You will be able to see and hear their progress online through an AP interactive, which can be found at featuring stories, photos and video of the soldiers and their families, who will update it weekly with their experiences. It can be found at http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/—national/homefront—hamle t/ HAMLET, N.C. — Christian Tyler knew exactly how to get ready for her first day of school: She slipped into her uniform, poured a bowl of Apple Jacks and plopped down on the living room couch to watch cartoons and wait for her dad. The 9-year-old knew nothing about what was to come next. Because her dad is a part-time soldier in the National Guard, the house, the school and the town — they were new. All of it came together in the past few weeks as Christian’s father, Jobel Barbosa, prepared to leave home this month to train for a yearlong deployment to Iraq. She wound up with her grandmother with plans to spend her days at Ashley Chapel Elementary, where she starts with no friends and wonders during class whether her father will be safe. ‘‘I’m scared,’’ she said softly. ‘‘I don’t want him to go.’’ It has been nearly six years since the United States invaded Iraq, and while the war is not forgotten, the singular sacrifices of America’s all-volunteer military and their families sometimes slip the minds of civilians focused on their own pain amid the deepening economic crisis. There are roughly 100,000 members of the National Guard and Reserve on active duty, weekend warriors who leave home to fight on battlefields half a world away. In 2009, they will include the 76 soldiers of E Company, 120th Combined Arms Battalion, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, North Carolina National Guard. Each deployment shrouds the soldiers, their loved ones — and especially in places such as Hamlet, their communities — in uncertainty. Christian, a nervous honor student with long black hair facing days without dad, joins suddenly single mothers struggling to take care of the kids, rookie soldiers with nervous dreams of battle and newlyweds with nightmares their spouses won’t return. ‘‘When you pull all of them out of here, it’s not like this community will become a ghost town. But it has a ripple effect in a small town,’’ said longtime Hamlet Police Chief John Haywood, who grew up with many of the company’s men. ‘‘Every soldier has family and friends. And this will be on their minds until their loved ones come home.’’ E Company left Dec. 1 to begin training at Fort Stewart, Ga., and in April, the unit — made up of guys who sell cars, fix diesel engines and work the few factory jobs left — is to leave for Iraq. They’ll come mostly from Hamlet, a town two hours east of Charlotte where a dog can lie in the street without creating a traffic jam. Once the largest city in Richmond County, the roughly 6,000 people who surround the mostly empty downtown have seen better days. Many of the textile mills and manufacturing plants Hamlet served in its heyday as a railroad hub have long since closed, replacing high-paying jobs with spots behind the fast-food counter or cash register at Wal-Marts in other towns. The National Guard Armory is on the eastern edge of town, a place most in Hamlet use for meetings, or to teach classes or even throw a party. Not for E Company, not since the orders arrived. It’s the spot where they took their first steps toward Iraq. For most, that meant stop after stop at the office and call after call to Sgt. 1st Class Brian Webb, who runs the armory day-to-day. Webb patiently answered each question. It’s his job. But the constant calls cut into the time he was able to spend with his wife Jackie and the couple’s three children as the day to leave for training grew near. ‘‘I worry about them all the time and I feel guilty about leaving. But there’s nothing I can do,’’ said Webb, 38, as he sat on a couch and watched his 2-year-old, Alivia, play with her toys. Then his cell phone rang again, and he left the room to take the call. ‘‘I am going to repeat the worst year of my life, but this time with a 2-year-old,’’ said Jackie Webb, who oversees three bank branches and relies on her husband to keep their household in order. Most nights, he has dinner ready, a load of laundry going and the kids’ homework done by the time she gets home. When Webb enlisted in the Guard nearly 20 years ago, Jackie expected the slogan: One weekend a month and two weeks a year. But E Company’s deployment will be Webb’s second in Iraq. On the day he left in 2004, his son Tyler, then 12, got into a fight at school, and his grades went on to slip throughout the year. Webb came home safely, but his wife spent every day worrying and trying to keep up. The mention of her husband’s latest deployment brings her to tears. ‘‘I want to stay upbeat, but...,’’ she said as her voice trailed away. ‘‘It’s so tough.’’ At least she will have the benefit of experience. Jennifer Guinn is just 22 and the mother of four: a son from a previous marriage, two stepsons who joined the family with husband Ryan, and the couple’s daughter Kylee, just 6 months old. Guinn is learning to track the family’s budget, using a white board in the kitchen, and remains intent on completing a college degree online. She’s worried about having to depend on others to help out when the kids are sick or when she just needs a break — stuff that was supposed to be handled by her new husband, the man she met when they were both training to be prison guards. ‘‘I think it is going to be a lot harder than what I am prepared for,’’ she said. ‘‘He is going to be missing first steps, first words. He is going to miss all of that. You can’t replace those with anything else.’’ Ryan Guinn, 34, fought with the 3rd Infantry Division during the initial Iraq invasion in 2003, facing swarms of Iraqi fighters who charged American tanks. During his second tour, he patrolled violent streets of the Shiite slum Sadr City in the center of Baghdad. He made enough money during his deployments to buy a house, but his first marriage ended in divorce shortly after he returned from his second tour. When he’s at the armory, he bounces around with a manic energy and talks to his fellow soldiers about anything that pops into his head: Politics. Movies. Sports. Anything but his third tour. ‘‘I know it’s coming. I don’t want to talk about it,’’ he said. ‘‘Why? It’s depressing.’’ At home, he’s quiet and attentive. He helps Jennifer, a petite blonde 12 years his junior, set the table or gently rocks their daughter while he reads her a book. When Iraq does come up, it’s often because his wife’s fears — of two grim-faced officers visiting her in the middle of the night — appear suddenly while she’s watching TV or changing a diaper. In a soothing voice, he assures her he’ll be OK. He tells her this is a different Iraq than during his earlier deployments. ‘‘Nothing is going to happen,’’ he tells her. ‘‘It’s much safer.’’ It doesn’t help much. She knows five members of the 30th Heavy didn’t come home from the brigade’s last tour. That same anxiety haunts the home of 36-year-old Staff Sgt. Jason Jones. A few weeks before E Company left for training, after he and his wife Ronda had their latest silly fight — this one was over where to place a framed map of Iraq — the couple raced to Myrtle Beach to get away. Poking in the kitschy shops on Ocean Boulevard and collecting seashells with their 2-year-old daughter, Rileigh, didn’t shake the cloud. ‘‘She likes to wait there for Jason to come home,’’ Ronda, 31, said of her toddler. ‘‘When she hears anyone coming to the door she says, ’Daddy.’ What happens when she hears the door slam and Daddy’s not there? What do you tell her? What do you say?’’ As much as the wives dread E Company’s deployment, Spc. Justin Detter can’t wait to leave. Why else would you enlist unless you want to travel and fight overseas? Detter lives in nearby Troy with his single mother and sister, but the 23-year-old sleeps at the armory most nights, watching TV on a 12-inch set in the lounge where his uniform rests in a heap on the corner bar next to the couch that doubles as his bed. He grew up wanting to join the military: first thinking Navy, like his grandfather, then settling on the Army’s Special Forces. He decided to sign up as a combat engineer in the National Guard because his recruiter said a lot of Special Forces guys start out as engineers. He took the castle — the symbol of the engineer corps — added a grim reaper and splashed the whole thing on his right shoulder. The tattoo was a reward to himself for not quitting during basic training and engineer school. Detter’s proud of his job and knows it beats a lifetime at his old gig, paving roads for the state Department of Transportation. But in quieter moments, he acknowledges he has no idea what to expect in Iraq. ‘‘I am willing to swallow my fears and go on with it,’’ Detter said, confident that veterans such as Guinn and Webb will look out for him. On her first day at school, Christian Tyler still had dad to look out for her. Even so, she frowned more with each step down the hallway to her new class. ‘‘She’s here because I’m going to Iraq,’’ Barbosa explained to his daughter’s new teacher, Marie Hackbart. ‘‘I understand,’’ she replied. ‘‘My son is returning in eight days.’’ Standing in the doorway as the children introduced themselves, Barbosa — covered with tattoos, a mechanic with strong, calloused hands — thought about how his daughter had gotten to this room, and he began to lose his composure. With Christian’s mother no longer in the picture, Barbosa’s mom watched Christian during his first tour. She balked when told he was headed back to Iraq, hoping the threat would get her son out of duty, then relented and agreed to take her granddaughter in again. The introductions over, Ms. Hackbart returned to the front door with Christian. ‘‘Do you want to say goodbye?’’ she asked the girl. She reached out to her father. They embraced and began to cry. ‘‘I love you, Daddy,’’ she whispered. ‘‘I love you, too. You’ll be OK. You’ll be OK.’’