“I’m excited, maybe a little anxious,” said Spc. Max Walls, 22, of Cincinnati about his first deployment. “I’m ready to go learn new things.”
Credit: Jen Balduf
Credit: Jen Balduf
Staff Sgt. Baylee Rathman of Cleveland has been deployed once before, to Turkey for 11 months when she was 20.
Now 28 and the highest-ranking non-commissioned female officer deploying with the unit, she said her goal is to be the leader to female soldiers she felt was needed during her first deployment.
That isn’t all that’s changed. Rathman also has a fiancé she will be leaving behind.
“This goodbye is harder,” she said.
Heather Whalen of Urbana, a mother of five from ages 9 years to 5 months, has been preparing for her husband, Spc. Ryan Hughes' first deployment.
“Our village will help us,” she said, in addition to extended family of the children’s grandparents and aunts and uncles.
“She’s always doing the extra,” Whalen’s mother-in-law, Donna Hughes, said. “She doesn’t give herself a lot of credit.”
Hughes said her daughter-in-law has signed up her older children for sports activities, made plans to have a grandfather there for a daddy-daughter dance, and for family members to attend various school functions.
“We’ve tried to fill in where our son is gone,” she said. “He said to me, ‘take care of my family.’”
Credit: Jen Balduf
Credit: Jen Balduf
Operation Spartan Shield is a combined forces contingency operation designed to deter and react to possible threats within the region, according to U.S. Army Central.
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