Knoxville News Sentinel November 7, 2004
Precious Time
By Bryan Mitchell
Sgt. 1st Class Mike Testerman had a busy summer._ While his kids chased fireflies in their West Knoxville yard, Testerman trained on the latest techniques in urban combat scenarios and convoy security at Camp Shelby, Miss.
And as Katie and John Michael's carefree summer days yielded to deskbound hours in school, he spent a month at Fort Drum, N.Y., before a month rotation at Fort Irwin, Calif.
"It's been a trip," Testerman said Thursday evening from Rick's Place in West Knoxville, where a group of family and fellow guardsmen had gathered.
The last five months, however, will prove calm in contrast to what the Testerman family must face next.
He is one of more than 3,000 Tennessee National Guardsmen who will soon deploy for a yearlong tour in Iraq.
The Knoxville-based 278th Regimental Combat Team is set to renew its place in history with its first overseas deployment since the Korean War.
"We are going there to help the Iraqi people," Testerman explained. "To give them a chance to take control over their own country."
For a few more days, though, the troops treasure each moment at home in Tennessee as their 10-day leaves wind to a sorrowful close.
"We cherish every minute for now," Testerman's wife, Jenny, said.
A perilous mission Twenty months after the war's commencement and nearly a year since Saddam Hussein's capture, roughly 135,000 American servicemen and women still occupy Iraq.
Soldiers in Iraq serve now in the closing months of Operation Iraqi Freedom II. The 278th will be part of Operation Iraqi Freedom III or the third annual troop rotation.
In safer sections of the country, troops serve in a peacekeeping capacity, work to rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure and attempt to forge goodwill with the Iraqi people.
But in a nation slightly larger than California and made up of a population nearly as diverse, trouble looms in the form of a sophisticated insurgency that has claimed the lives of hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis.
Maj. Jeff Brown acknowledges the 278th enters a tense Iraq, a perilous war zone far from the traditional tank-on-tank battlefield the regiment has trained on for years.
The insurgency is most pronounced in the so-called Sunni Triangle west of Baghdad, but members of the regiment contend no region should be considered entirely friendly.
"We know that getting out of our vehicle and moving around a town has proven to be an unwise tactic," Brown said.
Safety and security will trump comfort and expediency.
"I've got to get 205 guys and girls home safely. That is my first priority," Brown said.
FOB sweet FOB The regiment is scheduled to depart sometime before Thanksgiving. An exact date is being withheld for security reasons.
Upon arrival in Kuwait, the unit will undergo a 10-30-day acclimation period before a series of roughly 600-mile convoys moves the regiment's more than 1,000 vehicles to its forward operating base - or FOB in military parlance.
The same Humvees that rolled on Tennessee blacktop in June will tear into Iraq sand in December.
Earlier this year, regimental commander Col. Dennis Adams said the convoy from Kuwait through Iraq would be among the most dangerous aspects of the mission.
"This is something we take very seriously," Adams said. "We know the risks are all too real."
Early indications are that the 278th ultimately will take up residence at three forward operating bases and eventually supplant the North Carolina Army National Guard 30th Brigade Combat Team at FOB Caldwell, which is in the Diyala province of eastern Iraq.
Regimental leaders have visited the area and received briefings from the 30th's senior leaders.
Diyala has been one of the less-troublesome provinces in Iraq, but it's not without danger, according to a Virginia-based defense research analyst.
"This is neither the worst nor the best part of Iraq," said John Pike, who runs Globalsecurity.org - a site dedicated to military information.
Soldiers who patrol the area haven't experienced the difficulties U.S. Marines face in the Al-Anbar province west of Baghdad. However, the recent executions of nearly 50 Iraqi National Guardsmen returning from training in Diyala demonstrate the region's volatility.
Pike says there is one regional issue that could affect the 278th's mission.
"This general part of the country had a lot of ethnic cleansing in the '80s with the Kurds pushed out by the Arabs," Pike explained. "Who gets to live there now is something the locals are arguing about."
Thus far, the territorial disputes have avoided violence, Pike said.
The possibility also exists the unit will first be positioned near Baghdad to provide security for Iraq's January election before moving to FOB Caldwell to replace its North Carolina counterpart, which is set to depart around March.
Regardless of their location, regiment leadership and Pike both said soldiers would most likely be involved in election security.
"I'm sure they are going to push us out into the streets to make sure the election lines are secure," Brown said.
Those left behind The active Army family understands.
Deployment orders arrive and soldiers depart.
It's a cycle followed at dozens of Army installations worldwide.
But for the 278th family - 3,000 strong stretching from Bristol to Jackson - the deployment of November 2004 is a watershed event.
Wives and husbands in Jacksboro, Sweetwater and Sparta with one last tender kiss. Children and cousins in Gallatin, Huntsville and Dayton with one last embrace.
These families aren't gathered on a base but scattered about our communities.
Brown's wife, Debbie, an active member of a 278th family support group, said the little things make the separation tough, especially for their children.
"When it comes time to do her math homework, that's when she'll realize he's gone," she said about her 8-year-old daughter, Kara.
The soldiers of East Tennessee will soon march off to war.
Their families will soldier on at home.
"I want to be strong for my husband and strong for our troops," Jenny Testerman said.
© Copyright 2004, Knoxville News Sentinel Co
