Two months ago the Soldiers of the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division arrived in Fort Lewis, Wash., for stateside training to prepare them for their upcoming deployment to the southern nine provinces of Iraq.
Soon, the moss and rain of western Washington will be nothing but a memory, as the last wave of Red Bull Soldiers will leave Fort Lewis for their mission in Iraq.
Bring on the sun.
“Twenty-eight years in the military has prepared me for today. I guess I’m as ready as you can be,” said Brig. Gen. David Eliciero, deputy commander of the 34th Red Bull Inf. Div. Eliciero will be deploying for the third time. “Everybody’s a little anxious. Bags are packed and loaded. I’m ready to go.”
While ready to go, Soldiers are also thinking of those at home.
“I miss home. I miss my son. I hope I can back get to them safely,” said Spc. Tony Vang, an Eagan, Minn., native.
“There’s good and there’s bad,” said Maj. Hanz Lehrke, a native of Stacy, Minn. “You feel good about doing something you’re trained for for a long time, but you’re always going to miss your family; some days are going to be worse than other days.”
“I feel like we’re all in this together, and we gotta do our best to make each other’s deployment a little better and do the best job we can,” Staff Sgt. Andrew Peterson, a native of St. Paul, Minn. “We’re already away from home, and we need to make the best of our time, so we can look back on this years after it’s past and we can be proud of what we did.”
