East Tennessee Heartland

EDITORS’ NOTE: Ryan Seals is with the 278th Regimental Combat Team’s 190th Engineer Company. The Times Free Press runs an occasional column from Spc. Seals.
   It has been four long months since members of Morristown and Monteagle’s 190th Engineer Company first left their families and livelihoods behind to begin training for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
   The journey has included three months of battling the humidity of a Mississippi summer and a month in the Mojave Desert at Fort Irwin, Calif. Now, with training over, the 278th Regimental Combat Team has departed for Kuwait for final preparations before heading into Iraq.
   Through this time, I have reflected on our training and this daunting mission. One thing is for sure — so far it hasn’t been easy. From the tears we shed when we left our families to the sweat we poured on the training grounds, life already has been rough for our soldiers.
   When we arrived at Camp Shelby, Miss., in June, we adjusted from the life of weekend warriors to that of full-time soldiers. For some it was easy — they just continued the active duty life they had known before leaving the service years ago. For others, including myself, it was a bit more difficult.
   My life as I had known it was changed completely.
   Some of it was a given — like being away from family and not having access to luxuries such as having a vehicle or being able to grab a bite to eat whenever I wanted.
   But what I didn’t expect was the difficulty of getting used to spending every minute of every day with the guys I previously had learned to put up with for two days a month. It was never hard getting along with them, but doing it all the time was difficult at first.
   I also went from having my own bedroom at home to sharing a building with more than 30 other guys. The concept of having privacy disappeared.
   Our new leadership from outside the 278th was another adjustment.
   For Operation Iraqi Freedom III, the regiment had welcomed the 386th Engineer Battalion from the Te x as Army National Guard. As the only engineer company originally in the 278 th, the 190th was attached to the 386 th.
   It was quite awkward at first. Their operations were different from those we were used to. Eventually we blended in, but we’ve kept a friendly Tennessee-Te x as rivalry throughout our four-month deployment.
   These adjustments were a side note to the overall mission to become combat ready at Camp Shelby. We spent three months practicing and learning different skills, from convoy operations to urban warfare and medical training.
   The training also molded us into a family.
   We we re tasked in a mock scenario similar to one we could face in Iraq. We provided security on a route leading to the Iraqi town of Medina Ma’akl, allowing civilians to register and vote in the country’s elections over a span of two weeks.
   In that training, the biggest enemy we faced was exhaustion, being tasked with back-toback missions multiple times.
   In that training, the biggest lesson we learned was to be aware of our surroundings at all times. With so many soldiers being killed by improvised explosive devices in Iraq, it is a lesson that will help keep us safe.
   We returned to Tennessee for 11 days of leave time with our families. The time I spent with my family was truly a blessing, but the good time was shadowed with the cloud of upcoming deployment.
   When I first left home for training, I thought about the danger of our mission often. But training and the constant media coverage of the Iraq situation helped me develop a numbness.
   I’m not as scared as I thought I would be. I’ve got more of a desire to go and accomplish the mission so we can come home.
   E-mail Spc. Ryan Seals at news@timesfreepress.com

This story was published Sunday, November 28, 2004

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