A
year and a half ago, a component of the 16th PSYOPS battalion left
The Patriot Guard met the soldiers at their reserve
center and then escorted their bus to O’Hare.
The next 50 photos are presented in chronological sequence.
Colonel Lintz rode with us. This is his bike.
And this is Colonel Lintz.
Hard to say who is prouder: Is it Ron to be standing with Specialist
Garcia, or is it Garcia to be standing with PGRider Ron?
They arrived individually. Some came with spouses, some came with
parents, some came alone. Then SFC Best started
moving them toward the bus that would move them as a unit to the airport. They would travel together for seven thousand
miles and then they would face their difficult work together.
They were no longer vulnerable individuals – they
were a team. They knew they were on a
winning team and they had good team spirit.
It was time to put on their game face.
Our convoy moved to O’Hare: First, two policemen who are members of the
16th but were not deploying, driving their squad cars. Next the PGR bikes. Then Colonel Lintz directly in front of the
bus. And then the cages.
The colonel used his Kevlar for the ride.
We stopped traffic for a while but the other travelers
didn’t mind. They took pictures.
Click on the photo directly above for a
half-megabyte, high-resolution version.
If your computer works like mine, you can then right-click and do a
“save as” to write the photo onto your own hard drive. You are welcome to print it.
That concludes the chronological presentation.
At 0800 the soldiers stood in formation so that SFC
Best could perform a roll call. I took
that opportunity to get portraits of some of them.
Many of them had been deployed before so they knew
what they were getting into. And those
who had not must have been full of anticipation. But do they look worried?
Or do they look confident in their leadership,
their mission and their purpose on Earth?
They will take care of each other.
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ONE
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TWO
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THREE
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