On Saturday, I was flown by the ONG out to Pendleton to attend Bravo 1-168 Aviation's mobilization ceremony. Aside from Captain Bomar, Tech. Sgt. Choy, Major General Rees, Captain Pete Wood and Command Sergeant Major Brunk Conley, I didn't know anyone in the hangar that afternoon.
It reminded me of the day I stood on the tarmac at McChord AFB and watched 2-162 Infantry return home from its 2004-05 deployment. I took photos of complete strangers, who during the course of writing the Devil's Sandbox, would later become like family to me.
Years later, I stumbled across those photos and marveled at who I captured in those images that day. I saw Pete Salerno as he stepped off the plane, Shannon Compton shaking hands with Vinni Jacques, Ken Kaiser all smiles--and of course LTC Dan Hendrickson.
Then came the reunion with the families in a gym at Fort Lewis. Soldiers and loved ones mobbed each other the moment the formation was dismissed. I walked among a sea of strangers and photographed moments of such profound joy that I felt like an intruder. Looking back, I was amazed at how through that project, some of those families became extensions of my own.
This past Saturday, I stood alone in the hangar, two cameras strapped around my neck. I used a 500mm telephoto lens this time to capture the moments that unfolded during the ceremony. This time, instead of feeling like an intruder, I felt more like a voyeur, observing these people unknown to me as of yet with both physical and personal distance between us.
I am sure that in the months to come, we will get to know each other as this deployment unfolds. That experience will be the one I will cherish the most, for I know in those ranks of present-strangers will be friends for life by the time I take my leave from them this fall.
Their stories will be told. For now, these images will have to suffice. The men and women of Bravo 1-168 Aviation just experienced a key dividing line in their lives. In a few days, they will be cleaved from their families and loved ones, sent to Texas for their pre-deployment training for six weeks. From there, they will fly to Afghanistan for a year in the heat of battle. Their six Chinook helicopters will carry troops and supplies to distant points unheard of and unuttered by most back here at home.
It will change them. For some, it will redraw their social networks, seal or rend asunder the fabric of their families. When they come home, they will have gone through one of the defining experiences of their lives. Some already understand this, as this deployment will not be their first. After nine long years of war, we are a country that has relied too heavily on far too few.
God and Captains Hoffman and Bomar, Third Army and whoever else in the chain of command willing, I will be out there with them, at least for the beginning of this odyssey.
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