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Soldiers prepare for Kuwait mission

By Mark Harrison
The Times-Journal

Published June 18, 2009

Some soldiers scheduled for their first overseas deployment are finding comfort in others who have come to view such deployments as old hat.

One such solider is 1st Sgt. Bobby Butler, 40, of Toney, with the 1343 Chemical Co. The troops left from Fort Payne in April, headed first to Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas and ultimately to the Kuwait border with Iraq in about a week.

Butler, who has experienced multiple deployments, says he’s gotten used to it.

“I think with someone like me and some of the other guys who are older and have already been overseas several times, it’s easier for us than it is for the guys who are being deployed for the first time,” Butler said. “It’s much more stressful for them, being away from their families for the first time.”

He said the troops in the 1343rd are split about evenly between veteran soldiers and soldiers about to be deployed for the first time. He said he is familiar with several soldiers from the Fort Payne and DeKalb County area.

“I think those who haven’t been deployed before, they find comfort in speaking with those who have been,” Butler said. “They don’t have to look very far to find someone like that, someone who can give them a little bit of advice.”

Many of the troops who left from Fort Payne are still training at Fort Hood. Butler said the soldiers he has trained have “really merged as a unit.”

The troops will offer security to convoys while deployed.

Linda Hamilton, of Fyffe, is the wife of Staff Sgt. Phillip Hamilton, one of the soldiers scheduled for deployment. She said she finds comfort in a large, family support group.

“So far, I’m doing well,” Linda Hamilton said. “I have a lot of family in the area and that has made it easier. My parents are here, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles.”

The Hamiltons have two children, Andrew, 5 and Zoe, 2, and another child due in November. Phillip Hamilton, like Butler, has been deployed before, and Linda Hamilton said that has helped their family deal better with the more recent deployment.

“Of course, right now, he’s still in Texas,” she said. “It will be a lot harder once he goes overseas.”

She said the best advice she can give to families experiencing overseas deployment for the first time is “just keep busy, and pray. And if anybody wants to help you, let them. You need all the moral support you can get.”

Linda Hamilton said she still speaks with her husband by phone fairly often, but expects that will change once he gets to Kuwait. She said she and the children are planning to travel to Fort Hood this weekend for a Father’s Day visit.

“That’s going to be his Father’s Day present this year,” she said.

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