PAWHUSKA, Okla. – National Guard Staff Sgt. Gabe Robinson knows he will be married only a matter of months before he’s likely to redeploy to Iraq, but considers himself lucky he’s been home since 2004.
Still, he worries about being injured.
“It’s always in your mind,” said Robinson, 32, who plans to marry in May. “Anyone who says they don’t think about that, they are lying.”
The Oklahoma City resident is among the 13,000 National Guard troops in Oklahoma, Indiana, Arkansas and an as-yet unspecified state expected to be notified soon that they could be sent to Iraq around the first of next year, military officials say.
“There’s always going to be some apprehension out there,” said Capt. Brad Hanna, a chaplain in the Oklahoma National Guard who served in Afghanistan. “We’re not in the position of making policy; all we can do is be ready to do what we’re called to do.”
As the body count increases in Iraq, some governors have begun to voice concerns about the military’s heavy use of National Guard troops.
Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry said the Pentagon is, in effect, reinstating the draft on the backs of National Guard units. Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe said redeploying National Guardsmen from his state would be “stretching our citizen soldiers thin.”
Staff Sgt. Andrew Armstrong, a 36-year-old iron worker, said the not knowing has everybody on edge. But leaving his family and his job for at least a year is part of his duty. “Somebody’s gotta do it,” he says.
National Guard deployments also can be hard on some small towns.
Members of Armstrong’s unit work at car dealerships, construction sites and factories.
This time next year, they could be in a desert half a world away from their home towns, behind the wheel of an armored vehicle or manning a .50-caliber machine gun.
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