Local National Guard unit off for deployment to Kuwait

CHILLICOTHE —  Hundreds of friends and family of the members of 1194th Engineering Company of the Ohio National Guard gathered Monday at Ohio University-Chillicothe for the unit's call to duty ceremony.

The company will be deployed to Kuwait as part of Operation Freedom's Sentinel, in support of the military mission in Afghanistan. While overseas, the unit — comprised of plumbers, electricians, concrete and masonry experts — will be conducting vertical engineering operations.

Jacob Williams, 27, of Chillicothe, is one of the nearly 160 members of the company that is preparing for their deployment.

The unit will ship out to Fort Bliss, Texas, in the next 72 hours for further training over the next couple of months before officially going overseas. Monday's ceremony at the Shoemaker Center was one last opportunity for the soldiers, like Williams, and their families to say their goodbyes.

Williams said he has had opportunities to say goodbye to his immediate family, but was able to do the same with his fiancee and her immediate family following Monday's ceremony.

"It's nice to know there's more than just immediate family and it means a lot to me," Williams said of his future in-laws coming to the ceremony.

Williams, after three years of service, said this will be his first deployment. Still, he feels prepared for the task the unit is taking on. The company has been under going pre-deployment training through July according to Williams, and he said that the next set of training in Texas will continue to prepare them to know "exactly what's going on."

Capt. Jared Hoffman, the unit's commander, said in his address to the soldiers and their families there are three things that will get the unit through their assignment: trust, discipline and physical fitness. Hoffman said the trust within the unit is built early on, to establish a family within the group, and now — in the next set of training — they will refine skills in discipline and physical fitness.

"I am extremely excited to see what this unit can accomplish overseas, and I am honored to lead them," Hoffman said.

This will also be Hoffman's first deployment, and he said that although there is some sense of trepidation, most are excited about the opportunity to deploy and accomplish their mission. However, he said he knows that other emotions were at play Monday, as the ceremony drew to a close and soldiers were able to spend a few more minutes with their families before loading up the buses. "I expect to see a full range of emotions, but there are a lot of people who have been deployed before that are able to share their experience," Hoffman said.

Hoffman acknowledged that it is not just the soldiers who go through the deployment, their families do, as well.

"It is our family that endures more and has a tougher time than we do," Hoffman said.

Along with Hoffman, several other representatives of the army and state senators spoke to the soldiers, thanking them for their service, as well as thanking the families for lending them their loved ones. Hoffman also accepted a flag that had once flown over the capital building on behalf of the unit.