Aberdeen National Guardsman's Unit Heads to Egypt for Peacekeeping Mission

Sgt. John Nolker, of Aberdeen, kissed his wife and daughter goodbye Thursday at the Towson Armory before embarking on a trip that will take him to Egypt for a peacekeeping mission after first training stateside.

"You be good, OK?" Nolker told his 2-year-old daughter as his wife Amanda held the baby in her arms.

"There's a lot of (emotions)," Amanda Nolker said, smiling and showing some tears. "It's too hard to sort out."

Nolker was one of 89 soldiers in the 1st Battalion of the Maryland Army National Guard's 175th Infantry Regiment who deployed from the Towson Armory on Thursday morning, and among 440 statewide who boarded buses at around the same time.

All of soldiers at the Towson Armory set off in two buses for a 10 hour drive to Camp Atterbury in Indiana for 45 days of training before deploying to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, near the Israeli border, to serve with the Multinational Force & Observers, a peacekeeping operation created by the Camp David Accords.

The Egypt that the Army National Guard members will arrive in is, of course, much different than the Egypt of a few months ago, before the fall of longtime president Hosni Mubarak.

"They're going to have to be much more diligent, much more cautious," said Col. Sean Casey, the Army National Guard's chief of staff. But, Casey said, the core mission under the Camp David Accords has not changed.

"You're an observer between two previously warring factions," he said. "It's still an important mission they have to put their heart and soul behind."

Spc. Ryan Grab, of Towson, had few words to say when discussing his military deployment to Egypt.

"It is what it is," said Grab, 24. "I'm just going to go over there and do my job."

Like Grab, many of the soldiers are approaching the turmoil with a cool confidence.

Sgt. Maj. Shelia Lucas of Windsor Mill was not deploying, but her son, Wilson, a medic, was. An Army reservist herself, she said she felt confident.

"It'll be fine," Lucas said. "I see a lot of soldiers here that have already been through (deployments)."

This will be the fourth deployment for some of the battalion's soldiers. In recent years, the battalion has assisted in the 2007 Iraq troop surge, and helped secure military bases after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

To send them off, the armory hosted a deployment ceremony, with remarks by Army National Guard officials, as the soldiers formed up to leave. Family, friends and veterans came to show their support. The Towson Chamber of Commerce provided breakfast for the soldiers and their families.

The ceremonies are about "getting the (soldiers') families to have confidence that we're going to take care of them," Casey said.

The Towson ceremony was one of five deployment ceremonies on Thursday morning. Gov. Martin O'Malley spoke at a deployment from the battallion's headquarters in Dundalk. Dignitaries present for the Towson deployment included Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz and Baltimore County Councilman Todd Huff.

Shortly after 10 a.m., the buses set off, escorted by Baltimore County police and a truck from the White Marsh Volunteer Fire Company.