CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind. — The number of Indiana National Guard soldiers serving overseas is about to triple. Camp Atterbury hosts a departure ceremony Wednesday for more than 600 soldiers with the Indiana National Guard 38th Infantry Division.
First Sgt. Josh Chenault of Bloomington is prepared for his third overseas deployment, but the first since being married. Chenault also has three children now.
"These ceremonies are there for our families," Chenault said, "to come out here and see all of us and our formation, and to recognize how many people are deploying with us, and for us to give thanks to them and to show them that here we are, we're ready to go. So we prepared our family by telling our young children that daddy was going to be deploying overseas, and we prepared ourselves with mentally preparing them, also the teachers and their friends and making sure that they were well taken care of and we built our base at home and make sure that we had a support system."
Sgt. First Class William Szabo lives in Carmel and works as an orthopedic technician for OrthoIndy.
"I love my country," Szabo said. "I want to serve. We've had generations in my family that have served in the military and I'm just carrying on that tradition. And I like the medical field, and I like being a combat medic and taking care of soldiers."
This unit has known for about a year that they would deploy to the Middle East in support of Operation Spartan Shield, which the Indiana National Guard describes as "the United States' operation to strengthen defense relationships and build partner capacity through leader engagements, multinational exercises and response planning."
Specialist Jamie Briel's parents and three sisters from Valparaiso will be in the crowd for the ceremony Wednesday.
"We were all raised extremely patriotic," Briel said. "We were raised singing 'God Bless the USA' on Daytona Beach on vacations. So, I was raised loving my country. Ultimately, I wanted the opportunity to potentially save the lives of those who are fighting for ours."
This is Briel's first deployment.
"I'm feeling almost all excitement," Briel said. "I've received text messages from my family saying that they're there to support me. They're anxiously awaiting my address to send care packages. So I know there a lot of people that do have anxiety going into this, nervousness. But I know that to my left and to my right I have people that love me, and I love my battle buddies."
The escalation of the Israel vs. Hamas war into air strikes in Lebanon certainly has the attention of soldiers potentially headed to the region.
"I stay in touch with all the media, the various countries over there," First Lt. Jeremiah Sexton of Mooresville said. "We like to read up from their point of views. But we get briefed regularly. We understand what the risks are. We understand what the concerns are, and we're well-informed. We're well-prepared to match anything that we need to match."
The soldiers departing Camp Atterbury will train for about a month at Fort Cavasos, Texas, before deploying to the Middle East. Wednesday's departure ceremony begins at 1 p.m. at the North Barracks Complex at Camp Atterbury.