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Tuesday, January 6, 2009 6:48 PM EST
Father and son shipping out for Iraq tour of duty
By Mandy Colosimo
Special to the Olean Times Herald
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| Staff Sgt. Todd Mead (left) and his son, Specialist Ryan Mead, both members of the Pennsylvania National Guard'd C Company, 1st Battalion, 112 Infantry Regiment, 45 Stryker Brigade, will deploy to Iraq by the end of the month. Photo submitted |
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PORT ALLEGANY, Pa. - Stories are in the papers all the time about soldiers being deployed overseas - of spouses leaving for combat, children going to war and cousins and siblings joining up at the same time to serve together.
But in Port Allegany, one father will remain in the service and take a third tour in Iraq so he can serve with his son, Ryan, thus leaving a wife without her husband and a mother without her youngest child.
“It’s a little tougher this time, he is the youngest of the three, and now the grown-up boy. You just have to smile through it,” said Sherrin Mead of her feelings about the deployment for which both her husband, Todd, and son, Ryan, will ship out by the end of the month.
Both soldiers are members of the Pennsylvania National Guard’s C Company, 1st Battalion, 112 Infantry Regiment, 56th Stryker Brigade. They are headed to Iraq, by way of Fort Dix, N.J.
Staff Sgt. Todd Mead has served the U.S. for 28 1/2 years as an infantry soldier; including 14 1/2 of those years with the regular U.S. Army on active duty before joining the Army National Guard. He has been deployed to Iraq three times, including this current mission, Operation Iraqi Freedom, leaving his wife of 25 years behind each time.
The Meads have three grown children. But the youngest of those three children, is going with his father to war in Iraq, making the loss double for Mrs. Mead, who had to wish both of them well Friday as they departed for Fort Indiantown Gap.
Both parents are proud of their son, but Mrs. Mead is still worried and not yet ready to see her little boy be a man. She relies on what she calls the faith factor and knowing the U.S. Army has trained them well to do their jobs.
Specialist Mead will head out for his first deployment overseas as a member of the Army National Guard. He joined the National Guard in 2007 after graduating from Port Allegany High School. He too will leave behind an anxious wife, Kayla.
Though his father finds that “being able to deploy with his son an honor and a privilege,” his mother said, “it’s hard.
“People say after all these years I should be used to it, but deployments are never easy, and this time they are both going,” she said.
She offers the following advice to others facing these circumstances: “It’s one day at a time. Grab onto whatever support you can.”
Staff Sgt. Mead is excited to go to Iraq with his son, but he’s worried too. They will not be stationed at the same camp when they get there. Staff Sgt. Mead will be located at Camp Victory/Liberty, which is approximately 25 miles northeast of Baghdad. His son will be stationed at Camp Taji, 10 miles northwest of Baghdad.
“No way I could let him go without me,” said Staff Sgt. Mead, even if they aren’t on the same base together.
Staff Sgt. Mead was called to this deployment under a stop-loss order, which retains soldiers on active duty for deployment, but he expects to retire in July 2010.
About that his wife chuckled, saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Approximately 4,000 troops are part of this deployment. They are expected to leave in two groups, first to Kuwait and then to their duty stations in Iraq.
The soldiers are expected to be back by September. Pennsylvania’s infantry soldiers represent the National Guard’s only Stryker Brigade. They trained for this deployment at Camp Shelby, Miss., and Fort Polk, La., from September through December.
- The Bradford Era
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