Tomorrow in Iowa City, IA there is a sendoff ceremony for 94 members of the Iowa City based Company B, First Battalion, 133rd Infantry. They will be headed to training grounds in Mississippi, followed by more training in California. Then finally, in mid to late October, they will be deployed to the mountains of eastern Afghanistan and a war zone that is becoming more perilous as the insurgency escalates. They are among the 2,800 Iowa National Guard troops being deployed to Afghanistan. Their mobilization is part of the 30,000 troop surge in an attempt to resolve the nine-year-old war.
First Sgt. Dave Crowley, the senior enlisted man in the local Guard unit is one of the brave soldiers that is being deployed. Dave is the brother of one of my co-workers and he has also contributed many comments to this website.
Dave, at the age of 45 is preparing for his fourth deployment. He has previously been deployed to Saudi Arabia in 2000, Egypt in 2002 and Iraq in 2006-07, he says that he's learned the separation often is more difficult for the families left behind than the soldiers. I’m sure his wife Linda and his kids will attest to that.
I think that Dave exemplifies what a true hero and patriot is, and I will be praying for God to watch over him, his fellow soldiers, and his family.
