thedrifter
06-10-07, 07:06 AM
Reality of war arrives home for Guard
By Dogen Hannah
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Article Launched: 06/10/2007 03:02:20 AM PDT
Editor's Note: To help fill President Bush's order for more front-line troops in Iraq, National Guard leaders turned to the Walnut Creek-based 1st Battalion of the 143rd Field Artillery Brigade.
The battalion of about 820 soldiers from more than 300 cities is the largest California Guard unit to be deployed since the Korean War.
Beginning in April, Times reporter Dogen Hannah and photographer Karl Mondon followed dozens of battalion soldiers and their families as they prepared for war.
The day that Spc. Carlos Arellano learned the Army was sending him back to Iraq, his fiancee didn't need him to tell her the news.
She knew the moment he walked through the door.
"Just from the look on his face, I knew he got that call," said Christy Ortega. "He didn't say anything -- just cried and broke down."
As much as the California National Guard soldier was proud to serve in uniform and to stand by comrades in war, the call to arms hit him hard.
The eight-year Army veteran had served one combat tour in Iraq. Returning for another meant more than dodging bullets and bombs again. It meant being apart from Ortega and their 15-month-old daughter for a year or more.
"Now, I got a family to think about," said the 30-year-old East Bay resident. "Now, I got more to fight for, more to come home for."
Similar calls went out to hundreds more California Guard troops from mid-February to late April. Get ready,
Advertisement
they were told. This summer, the Army would send to Iraq the largest group of Guard soldiers from the state.
Pfc. Chenaka Dealwis was at home in El Sobrante talking with his father when the call came.
Pfc. Anthony Malasavanh was in his Bay Point office taking care of paperwork.
Spc. Mark Brown was at home in Fairfield with his wife and two daughters.
The soldiers had expected the call sooner or later. Still, they were stunned when it came.
"We were watching the news at the time, and they were talking about the 'surge' and how many California troops were supposed to go," said Brown, 42. "Then I got this telephone call: 'Hey, dude, you're on your way.'"
After Brown hung up, he turned to his wife.
The couple had known that he could be sent to Iraq. Suddenly both of them realized "it's for real," Brown said. "It's totally for real."
With those calls, the surge of thousands of additional troops to Iraq that President Bush announced during a Jan. 10 nationally televised prime-time speech hit home in households of Guard soldiers up and down the Golden State.
For decades the nation had tapped the Guard's "weekend warriors" mostly for domestic duties, such as helping out during natural disasters. Not since World War II have Guard soldiers gone to war in such large numbers and for so long as they have in the Iraq war.
After Bush ordered deployment of 21,500 front-line troops, California Guard leaders turned to the Walnut Creek-based 1st Battalion of the 143rd Field Artillery Brigade.
Soldiers from more than 300 California cities were called up. Their ranks included salesmen, corporate managers, mechanics, college students, security guards, warehouse workers, teachers, plumbers, waiters and clerks.
Some of them had been serving for a decade or more in one military branch or another and had been seasoned by repeated combat deployments. Others were "fresh meat," new recruits trained just enough to stand in the ranks and follow orders.
Dealwis, a 20-year-old Sri Lankan immigrant who enlisted in the summer, was excited to deploy for the first time but worried for his parents. They had persuaded him to forgo active-duty service, thinking that in the Guard he might be sheltered from the war.
"They really don't want me to go," Dealwis said. "I'm infantry. So they know I'm right in front."
Lt. Col. Ian Falk had not expected to take his battalion to war.
The unit was in line to be mobilized, but the urgent demand for troops meant it would be doing so at least six months earlier than expected. Also, it would have just four months, instead of the usual six or more, to amass a force and begin training.
When Falk, a 44-year-old Desert Storm veteran, moved to California to take command in October, he expected he would bring the battalion up to date with new weapons systems. The job of leading the unit in battle would fall to his successor, he thought.
"I figured I wouldn't do a whole lot of exciting stuff," Falk said.
Instead, in late January, Falk was summoned to the Guard's Sacramento headquarters. California had to send more troops to Iraq, the brigade commander told Falk, so the battalion was being called up.
"Our number came up a little sooner than we thought," Falk said.
The cavernous Walnut Creek armory came alive with activity as the battalion staff ramped up for the June 9 mobilization. They needed to notify soldiers, plan for three months of training, and order new assault rifles and other military gear.
"We're putting in some long hours," Falk said one day at the armory. "I've got several of my folks that are basically spending the night here, because it's easier for them than to try to go home every night."
The mobilization phone calls and letters were jarring.
Some soldiers wanted to deploy. Others dreaded leaving home. Most had mixed feelings.
Whatever they felt, from that moment on the soldiers and their families could count their remaining days together.
It's tough enough to face another year or so in Iraq, said Arellano, who rolled into Iraq with the Army in 2003. This time, leaving behind his wife and child makes it that much harder, he said.
"I'm not going to be there when my daughter falls -- to be right there, smile at her, make her feel better, protect her," he said. "Daddy has to leave for a while and deal with the bad guys."
Like during his first tour in Iraq, the Pittsburg resident will wear a charm from his mother around his neck with his dog tags. It reads: "I'm coming home."
"She said: 'If you ever get scared, look at it,'" he said.
"I've looked at it plenty of times. ... When you get mortars and rockets (landing) around you -- when they're really close, whoa! They'll knock you on the ground. Your bones are shaking. Your heart's pumping."
Arellano re-enlisted in the Guard in December and had expected to be sent back to Iraq -- just not so soon.
He had been looking forward to marrying Ortega and settling down to raise their daughter, Ayiana. The couple began their relationship by mail while he was in Iraq, and deployments kept him away during her pregnancy and Ayiana's birth.
The couple spent part of his re-enlistment bonus on an apartment and, just after Christmas, mother and daughter moved from Los Angeles to be with Arellano. He was planning to start a union apprenticeship as a plumber.
"It's really hard, because we just got our life together started," said Ortega, 22. "Already, we've got to go figure something else out."
Before the battalion began training in mid-May, soldiers and their families rearranged their lives.
Falk and his wife canceled a Hawaii vacation. Dealwis dropped out of Contra Costa College architecture classes. Pfc. Nick Martinez of Fresno quit his job as a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. meter reader. Spc. Monolito "Lee" Arnold of Concord broke off a budding romantic relationship.
Brown officially learned he was going to Iraq the same day that he and his wife opened their photography business. The couple had lined up a bank loan and begun to outfit a 3,000-square-foot studio they had leased in Fairfield.
"I just paid (the landlord) literally two days before I started moving everything in," Brown said.
But when it became clear to the freelance photographer that he would be gone for at least a year, the couple closed up shop. "We went and packed up everything and moved out in one day."
The landlord refunded their money, but they had been counting on the business to bring in at least $20,000 in the first few months. They had scheduled portraits and weddings photographs before opening their doors.
"Not having that business open, not having that income coming in, that hurts," Brown said. "Financially it's a struggle ... but we're dealing with it."
Brown's wife, Angie, cares full time for the couple's daughters, 16-year-old Kim and 6-year-old Stacey. While Brown is away, the household will make do with his Guard salary.
"We're counting on those paychecks to keep everything going as a family and even putting a little away on the side so that when I come back, we can reopen," Brown said.
For its mission in Iraq, the battalion has been supersized into a task force of about 820 soldiers. That makes it the largest California Guard unit to be deployed since the Korean War.
The Guard pulled about 500 soldiers from other units to supplement the battalion. They were picked during two months from about 1,400 soldiers who underwent three days of medical and administrative "soldier readiness" screening at Camp Roberts in San Luis Obispo County.
The results helped to identify which soldiers were, as the Army puts it, "good to go."
Johnathan Chiappara volunteered to go, even though he had joined the Guard to be a transportation management coordinator, not an infantry soldier, just a few months earlier.
"I figured, if I joined, I joined for a reason," said the 21-year-old private from Hesperia. "It wasn't to sit home. ... It was to go out and do something to help."
First, he had to find out whether he was "good to go."
Although most soldiers traveled for hours to Camp Roberts, near Paso Robles, on buses chartered by the Guard, Chiappara rented a car and drove the more than 250 miles from his Southern California home.
At the camp, he and dozens more soldiers sat in waiting areas or crowded into a hallway inside a narrow, single-story building divided into exam rooms. As he got his blood pressure and pulse checked, Chiappara said that he had no wife or girlfriend to consult or convince before his decision.
As for his parents and sister, they did not share his enthusiasm.
"My mom cried at first, and then she finally got over it -- kind of," Chiappara said. "My dad, he doesn't really say much when it comes to emotional stuff. My sister ... she just prays for me a lot."
Despite his family's misgivings, Chiappara was determined to join the mission. He wanted to see a another country and to see a war. The dangers and hardships he imagined ahead made him somewhat hesitant but did not stop him.
"I'm a little bit nervous," Chiappara said. "But it's going to be overall a good life experience -- I think. ... I've wondered since the war started what it's been like."
On the same day at the camp, 22-year-old Spc. Ruben Alvarado was equally determined not to go on the mission.
The San Jose resident had recently joined the Guard after serving four years on active duty in the Army that included two tours in Iraq. He had seen plenty of the war while guarding convoys and patrolling terrain teeming with homemade bombs and insurgent snipers.
Alvarado was willing to go back to Iraq but had not expected to be called up just six months after returning from war. He and his wife had plans for the future. In a few months they would be celebrating their one-year anniversary.
"I love being a soldier," Alvarado said. "I wouldn't mind going back there if it wasn't for my family. It was hard for them the second time. I don't think they could handle it a third time."
The Brinks armored car driver also wanted to avoid interrupting his plans for a new career. He had thought he would have at least two years before being deployed again and, during that time, he had planned to start college and pursue a job with the FBI.
As he underwent screening at the camp, Alvarado said he was "just waiting for my chance to say: 'Hey, I've already been there, I've barely gotten back, I don't need to go again.'"
As it turned out, both soldiers got what they wanted when the battalion's battle roster was set. Chiappara's name was on it. Alvarado's was not.
Sgt. Matthew Convis, who last served in the military almost 30 years ago, was also on the roster.
His first enlistment was a four-year hitch in the Marine Corps that ended in 1979. In February, the Danville resident and AT&T manager enlisted in the Guard.
A sense of duty to the nation propelled Convis back into uniform. It's a value that was shaped, at least in part, by a father who was an Air Force officer and an admired older brother who served two tours in Vietnam with the Marines.
"I have a strong sense of patriotism," Convis said.
He followed his brother into the Marines in 1974 at age 17, enlisting during the waning days of the Vietnam War. Convis spent his time uneventfully, stationed in Hawaii and Tokyo.
Marriage, children and a career followed in the next two decades. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
That morning he rousted his two daughters from bed to watch events unfold on television and kept them home from school. He wanted "to make sure that they understood that the world had changed," he said.
"Until then, I wouldn't have thought that the military needed people," Convis said. "But when we have neighbors sending their sons and daughters off -- and sometimes they don't come back -- I just felt like people needed to step up if they can."
He waited for his younger daughter to finish high school and for the blessing of his wife of 27 years before joining the Guard at age 50. About two months later, he learned he was being sent to Iraq.
"I was kind of a little weak-kneed, thinking, 'Oh, my gosh, this is it,'" Convis said. "But as soon as I talked to my wife about it, and she got over the initial shock and I got that support from her, that concern and weight was really lifted."
The repeated deployments of a year or more needed to sustain more than five years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have put great strain on soldiers, including those in the Guard.
In response, the Pentagon rolled out a new policy to shorten Guard mobilizations to no more than 400 days. The Walnut Creek-based battalion is the first California unit called up under the policy.
The intent is that, after training, units should be deployed to war for no more than about 10 months. On the other hand, the policy also allows for soldiers to be mobilized more frequently.
Sgt. Adrian Escorcia hadn't expected to be mobilized again so soon.
Toward the end of his three-day stay at Camp Roberts for soldier readiness screening, the 30-year-old Los Angeles resident sat outside the soldiers' club one breezy evening and reflected on how his future had radically changed.
Six years ago he joined the Guard, instead of the active-duty Army, so that he could remain close to home most of the time. Later, he said, he realized that he had been naive about how often and for how long his enlistment would uproot him.
A week before being summoned to Camp Roberts, he had been working, in college and enjoying time with his girlfriend. After returning in March 2006 from a yearlong deployment to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, he thought he had two years before being mobilized again.
He didn't know that the rules had changed.
"You've been told you're going to have two years off when you come back," Escorcia said. "You feel: 'OK, cool, I can relax.'"
He said he will fight in Iraq for himself and his comrades. Because he's being deployed so soon after returning home, he will not re-enlist and has no enthusiasm for the battalion's mission.
"My view about the war? It's not my war. I don't care. I just don't want to be in it," Escorcia said. "I'll go. But this is it. This is my last one."
One Sunday in late April, about 100 soldiers and their loved ones gathered inside the Walnut Creek armory for a "family readiness briefing." It was one of about a dozen such briefings across the state that day to prepare for the battalion's mobilization.
Representatives of military and veterans groups talked about an array of services for soldiers and families. Then, the battalion commander spoke plainly about the tough times ahead.
"The bottom line is we got called up because the country needs us," Falk said. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's not dangerous, but I'll do everything in my power to bring everyone home in one piece."
Sgt. 1st Class Mark Bowers and his wife, Dana, both 39, discussed the danger. At night, after they put their 11-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter to bed, they sat together in their Fairfield house and considered the worst possibilities.
"We've actually had some deeper conversations about more meaningful things: What could happen and what we need to do," said Dana Bowers.
They have discussed what medical care the 18-year Army veteran wants if he is wounded in Iraq. They have discussed the funeral services he wants if he does not survive. They have discussed his will.
"You should have that all thought of when you're married," Dana Bowers said. But until forced to face them, they are "subjects you just don't want to approach."
She was not the first person in her family to learn that her husband would be going to Iraq.
He broke the news to the couple's son, Nic, as father and son chopped firewood in the backyard. The sixth-grader was told he would need to shoulder more household responsibility to help his mother and sister during his father's absence.
"In order for me to feel comfortable with being able to go and take care of what the country's asking me to do, I need to make sure that my family's taken care of, and Nic is a big part of that," said Mark Bowers.
"I do not expect him to do all of the things that I do, but I need him to step up a little bit."
The relatively rapid mobilization left families with several months at most to begin to prepare for soldiers' absences. Some families received only a few weeks' advance notice.
Mark Bowers changed the oil in the family vehicles, bought a Christmas gift for his brother-in-law and, with family and friends, tackled a list of home-improvement projects.
Dealwis, the Sri Lankan immigrant, and Malasavanh, the 21-year-old Antioch resident and child of Laotian immigrants, quit working to spend more time with their families. Staff Sgt. Tony Sessoms, 38, of San Jose moved out of his apartment and put his belongings in storage.
Arellano and Ortega tied the knot.
It wasn't the big, family-filled wedding that they envisioned, but they didn't have time to do more before Arellano left for training.
They were wed in a bare county clerk's office in Martinez by a deputy county commissioner. A wooden lectern stood in for an altar. Ortega's parents couldn't make it from Los Angeles.
"OK, Dad, I got to go," Ortega said in a quick phone call before the ceremony. "I love you, too."
Still, what mattered to the bride and groom was that they be married before he left for war.
"I'm really excited," Arellano said. "We're going to get this done."
He wore his dress uniform with medals and rows of colorful Army ribbons pinned to his chest. She wore a white dress with a flower print. The couple exchanged vows and rings bought the day before. A half-dozen family members and friends witnessed the event.
When the simple ceremony was over fewer than four minutes after it began, there was a round of hugs and handshakes. He grinned. She teared up while reassuring the couple's daughter.
"Mom's happy," she told the toddler, who was apparently perplexed by the emotional occasion. "That's why Mom's crying."
As guests wished the newlyweds well, there was little talk of the hardships to come during the year ahead.
At one point, Arellano and a comrade discussed the best way to wear a wedding ring to prevent it from being lost in combat. Wear it on the ring finger, slip it onto the thin necklace that holds a soldier's dog tags, or thread it through a wristwatch band.
The newlyweds went to brunch afterward and then set out in search of a self-storage unit. Within a week, he would travel to Camp Roberts for training and she would move back to Los Angeles.
Before leaving home for training, Arnold, the Concord soldier, said goodbye to more than just friends and family.
One day on the playground at Westwood Elementary School, dozens of children swarmed around him. It was evident that Arnold, a 23-year-old teacher's assistant at the school's day care, preschool and kindergarten, has many fans.
"We spend a lot of time with him because we think he's cool," gushed 9-year-old Emily Cortes. "He does a lot of cool projects, and he's really fun to hang around with."
Arnold had impressed the children with his willingness to play tetherball and by singing songs while playfully marching them around the playground. He also had pinned nicknames on them, including 9-year-old Brandon Moore, or "B-Dog."
In turn, they came up with a suitable nickname for him.
"He's called 'The Glitter Guy,' cause he uses glitter," said 10-year-old Kurtis Wiseman. "Every single project he has uses glitter."
The children plan to send their idol care packages and to follow "Lee's Journey" on a world map posted to a classroom wall. A ribbon marked the start of a trek that will span an ocean and two continents.
"That's awesome," Arnold said. "I love these kids."
Dressed in his camouflage uniform, Arnold returned to the school for a farewell a few days before leaving home. As excited as the children were to see him, they were sad that he would be gone and in peril for so long.
"He's, like, really funny and he does a lot of goofy things," said 10-year-old Sequoia Huerta. "We're going to miss him a lot."
Arnold would miss them, too, but he also felt compelled by duty, pride and a hunger for adventure to embark on his first combat tour. He had enlisted partly in admiration of a grandfather who rose to the highest rank of warrant officer in the Army.
"It's an honor to go, and by honor I mean it's kind of a transition into manhood," said Arnold. "I know it sounds a little weird, but I'm a little excited to go. I'm an adventurous person."
From the sight of smiling children, to the embrace of a spouse, to the taste of a favorite meal, soldiers said such cherished memories will help them through tough times in Iraq.
On a warm and breezy afternoon in Pittsburg's Buchanan Park, hamburger patties sizzled on a grill, bottles of beer chilled on ice and Arellano and Ortega basked in the company of more than a dozen friends and relatives.
The couple's daughter was never far from her parents' loving gaze as she sat on a towel flanked by plush toy animals or roamed the lawn in search of dandelions.
Minding the grill was one of Arrellano's three brothers, Allen Arellano Jr., 20. The college student had driven through the night from Southern California to visit his brother, the oldest of eight children, before he left for Iraq.
Friends, comrades and former co-workers rounded out the cheerful gathering. Also on hand was the family patriarch, 48-year-old Allen Arellano of South San Francisco, a burly and affable warehouse worker.
When his son called him at work about a week earlier to tell him that he was returning to Iraq, the former Marine was so rattled by the news that he couldn't eat his lunch. Despite his good humor and appetite at the barbecue, he remained troubled.
"I had to come here and smile without thinking about this too much," Allen Arellano said. "I'm not a gambling man, but I think the odds aren't in my favor."
The picnic was a last-minute event, thrown together when it became clear that Carlos Arellano was returning to Iraq. He was grateful for the opportunity to relax with family and friends even for just an afternoon.
"Oh, I need it," he said. "I needed it the first time (before going to Iraq), and I think I need it more the second time."
In fewer than two weeks, he would report to Camp Roberts. A month after that he would continue training in New Jersey. And about three months after that he would begin his second combat tour.
By the time his boots hit the ground in Iraq, the idyllic barbecue will be just a fond memory.
"I know for sure we're going to get into some heavy stuff," Arellano said. "So, that's why this right here is soaking in deep."
Dogen Hannah covers the military and the home front. Reach him at 925-945-4794 or dhannah@cctimes.com.
Ellie
By Dogen Hannah
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Article Launched: 06/10/2007 03:02:20 AM PDT
Editor's Note: To help fill President Bush's order for more front-line troops in Iraq, National Guard leaders turned to the Walnut Creek-based 1st Battalion of the 143rd Field Artillery Brigade.
The battalion of about 820 soldiers from more than 300 cities is the largest California Guard unit to be deployed since the Korean War.
Beginning in April, Times reporter Dogen Hannah and photographer Karl Mondon followed dozens of battalion soldiers and their families as they prepared for war.
The day that Spc. Carlos Arellano learned the Army was sending him back to Iraq, his fiancee didn't need him to tell her the news.
She knew the moment he walked through the door.
"Just from the look on his face, I knew he got that call," said Christy Ortega. "He didn't say anything -- just cried and broke down."
As much as the California National Guard soldier was proud to serve in uniform and to stand by comrades in war, the call to arms hit him hard.
The eight-year Army veteran had served one combat tour in Iraq. Returning for another meant more than dodging bullets and bombs again. It meant being apart from Ortega and their 15-month-old daughter for a year or more.
"Now, I got a family to think about," said the 30-year-old East Bay resident. "Now, I got more to fight for, more to come home for."
Similar calls went out to hundreds more California Guard troops from mid-February to late April. Get ready,
Advertisement
they were told. This summer, the Army would send to Iraq the largest group of Guard soldiers from the state.
Pfc. Chenaka Dealwis was at home in El Sobrante talking with his father when the call came.
Pfc. Anthony Malasavanh was in his Bay Point office taking care of paperwork.
Spc. Mark Brown was at home in Fairfield with his wife and two daughters.
The soldiers had expected the call sooner or later. Still, they were stunned when it came.
"We were watching the news at the time, and they were talking about the 'surge' and how many California troops were supposed to go," said Brown, 42. "Then I got this telephone call: 'Hey, dude, you're on your way.'"
After Brown hung up, he turned to his wife.
The couple had known that he could be sent to Iraq. Suddenly both of them realized "it's for real," Brown said. "It's totally for real."
With those calls, the surge of thousands of additional troops to Iraq that President Bush announced during a Jan. 10 nationally televised prime-time speech hit home in households of Guard soldiers up and down the Golden State.
For decades the nation had tapped the Guard's "weekend warriors" mostly for domestic duties, such as helping out during natural disasters. Not since World War II have Guard soldiers gone to war in such large numbers and for so long as they have in the Iraq war.
After Bush ordered deployment of 21,500 front-line troops, California Guard leaders turned to the Walnut Creek-based 1st Battalion of the 143rd Field Artillery Brigade.
Soldiers from more than 300 California cities were called up. Their ranks included salesmen, corporate managers, mechanics, college students, security guards, warehouse workers, teachers, plumbers, waiters and clerks.
Some of them had been serving for a decade or more in one military branch or another and had been seasoned by repeated combat deployments. Others were "fresh meat," new recruits trained just enough to stand in the ranks and follow orders.
Dealwis, a 20-year-old Sri Lankan immigrant who enlisted in the summer, was excited to deploy for the first time but worried for his parents. They had persuaded him to forgo active-duty service, thinking that in the Guard he might be sheltered from the war.
"They really don't want me to go," Dealwis said. "I'm infantry. So they know I'm right in front."
Lt. Col. Ian Falk had not expected to take his battalion to war.
The unit was in line to be mobilized, but the urgent demand for troops meant it would be doing so at least six months earlier than expected. Also, it would have just four months, instead of the usual six or more, to amass a force and begin training.
When Falk, a 44-year-old Desert Storm veteran, moved to California to take command in October, he expected he would bring the battalion up to date with new weapons systems. The job of leading the unit in battle would fall to his successor, he thought.
"I figured I wouldn't do a whole lot of exciting stuff," Falk said.
Instead, in late January, Falk was summoned to the Guard's Sacramento headquarters. California had to send more troops to Iraq, the brigade commander told Falk, so the battalion was being called up.
"Our number came up a little sooner than we thought," Falk said.
The cavernous Walnut Creek armory came alive with activity as the battalion staff ramped up for the June 9 mobilization. They needed to notify soldiers, plan for three months of training, and order new assault rifles and other military gear.
"We're putting in some long hours," Falk said one day at the armory. "I've got several of my folks that are basically spending the night here, because it's easier for them than to try to go home every night."
The mobilization phone calls and letters were jarring.
Some soldiers wanted to deploy. Others dreaded leaving home. Most had mixed feelings.
Whatever they felt, from that moment on the soldiers and their families could count their remaining days together.
It's tough enough to face another year or so in Iraq, said Arellano, who rolled into Iraq with the Army in 2003. This time, leaving behind his wife and child makes it that much harder, he said.
"I'm not going to be there when my daughter falls -- to be right there, smile at her, make her feel better, protect her," he said. "Daddy has to leave for a while and deal with the bad guys."
Like during his first tour in Iraq, the Pittsburg resident will wear a charm from his mother around his neck with his dog tags. It reads: "I'm coming home."
"She said: 'If you ever get scared, look at it,'" he said.
"I've looked at it plenty of times. ... When you get mortars and rockets (landing) around you -- when they're really close, whoa! They'll knock you on the ground. Your bones are shaking. Your heart's pumping."
Arellano re-enlisted in the Guard in December and had expected to be sent back to Iraq -- just not so soon.
He had been looking forward to marrying Ortega and settling down to raise their daughter, Ayiana. The couple began their relationship by mail while he was in Iraq, and deployments kept him away during her pregnancy and Ayiana's birth.
The couple spent part of his re-enlistment bonus on an apartment and, just after Christmas, mother and daughter moved from Los Angeles to be with Arellano. He was planning to start a union apprenticeship as a plumber.
"It's really hard, because we just got our life together started," said Ortega, 22. "Already, we've got to go figure something else out."
Before the battalion began training in mid-May, soldiers and their families rearranged their lives.
Falk and his wife canceled a Hawaii vacation. Dealwis dropped out of Contra Costa College architecture classes. Pfc. Nick Martinez of Fresno quit his job as a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. meter reader. Spc. Monolito "Lee" Arnold of Concord broke off a budding romantic relationship.
Brown officially learned he was going to Iraq the same day that he and his wife opened their photography business. The couple had lined up a bank loan and begun to outfit a 3,000-square-foot studio they had leased in Fairfield.
"I just paid (the landlord) literally two days before I started moving everything in," Brown said.
But when it became clear to the freelance photographer that he would be gone for at least a year, the couple closed up shop. "We went and packed up everything and moved out in one day."
The landlord refunded their money, but they had been counting on the business to bring in at least $20,000 in the first few months. They had scheduled portraits and weddings photographs before opening their doors.
"Not having that business open, not having that income coming in, that hurts," Brown said. "Financially it's a struggle ... but we're dealing with it."
Brown's wife, Angie, cares full time for the couple's daughters, 16-year-old Kim and 6-year-old Stacey. While Brown is away, the household will make do with his Guard salary.
"We're counting on those paychecks to keep everything going as a family and even putting a little away on the side so that when I come back, we can reopen," Brown said.
For its mission in Iraq, the battalion has been supersized into a task force of about 820 soldiers. That makes it the largest California Guard unit to be deployed since the Korean War.
The Guard pulled about 500 soldiers from other units to supplement the battalion. They were picked during two months from about 1,400 soldiers who underwent three days of medical and administrative "soldier readiness" screening at Camp Roberts in San Luis Obispo County.
The results helped to identify which soldiers were, as the Army puts it, "good to go."
Johnathan Chiappara volunteered to go, even though he had joined the Guard to be a transportation management coordinator, not an infantry soldier, just a few months earlier.
"I figured, if I joined, I joined for a reason," said the 21-year-old private from Hesperia. "It wasn't to sit home. ... It was to go out and do something to help."
First, he had to find out whether he was "good to go."
Although most soldiers traveled for hours to Camp Roberts, near Paso Robles, on buses chartered by the Guard, Chiappara rented a car and drove the more than 250 miles from his Southern California home.
At the camp, he and dozens more soldiers sat in waiting areas or crowded into a hallway inside a narrow, single-story building divided into exam rooms. As he got his blood pressure and pulse checked, Chiappara said that he had no wife or girlfriend to consult or convince before his decision.
As for his parents and sister, they did not share his enthusiasm.
"My mom cried at first, and then she finally got over it -- kind of," Chiappara said. "My dad, he doesn't really say much when it comes to emotional stuff. My sister ... she just prays for me a lot."
Despite his family's misgivings, Chiappara was determined to join the mission. He wanted to see a another country and to see a war. The dangers and hardships he imagined ahead made him somewhat hesitant but did not stop him.
"I'm a little bit nervous," Chiappara said. "But it's going to be overall a good life experience -- I think. ... I've wondered since the war started what it's been like."
On the same day at the camp, 22-year-old Spc. Ruben Alvarado was equally determined not to go on the mission.
The San Jose resident had recently joined the Guard after serving four years on active duty in the Army that included two tours in Iraq. He had seen plenty of the war while guarding convoys and patrolling terrain teeming with homemade bombs and insurgent snipers.
Alvarado was willing to go back to Iraq but had not expected to be called up just six months after returning from war. He and his wife had plans for the future. In a few months they would be celebrating their one-year anniversary.
"I love being a soldier," Alvarado said. "I wouldn't mind going back there if it wasn't for my family. It was hard for them the second time. I don't think they could handle it a third time."
The Brinks armored car driver also wanted to avoid interrupting his plans for a new career. He had thought he would have at least two years before being deployed again and, during that time, he had planned to start college and pursue a job with the FBI.
As he underwent screening at the camp, Alvarado said he was "just waiting for my chance to say: 'Hey, I've already been there, I've barely gotten back, I don't need to go again.'"
As it turned out, both soldiers got what they wanted when the battalion's battle roster was set. Chiappara's name was on it. Alvarado's was not.
Sgt. Matthew Convis, who last served in the military almost 30 years ago, was also on the roster.
His first enlistment was a four-year hitch in the Marine Corps that ended in 1979. In February, the Danville resident and AT&T manager enlisted in the Guard.
A sense of duty to the nation propelled Convis back into uniform. It's a value that was shaped, at least in part, by a father who was an Air Force officer and an admired older brother who served two tours in Vietnam with the Marines.
"I have a strong sense of patriotism," Convis said.
He followed his brother into the Marines in 1974 at age 17, enlisting during the waning days of the Vietnam War. Convis spent his time uneventfully, stationed in Hawaii and Tokyo.
Marriage, children and a career followed in the next two decades. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
That morning he rousted his two daughters from bed to watch events unfold on television and kept them home from school. He wanted "to make sure that they understood that the world had changed," he said.
"Until then, I wouldn't have thought that the military needed people," Convis said. "But when we have neighbors sending their sons and daughters off -- and sometimes they don't come back -- I just felt like people needed to step up if they can."
He waited for his younger daughter to finish high school and for the blessing of his wife of 27 years before joining the Guard at age 50. About two months later, he learned he was being sent to Iraq.
"I was kind of a little weak-kneed, thinking, 'Oh, my gosh, this is it,'" Convis said. "But as soon as I talked to my wife about it, and she got over the initial shock and I got that support from her, that concern and weight was really lifted."
The repeated deployments of a year or more needed to sustain more than five years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have put great strain on soldiers, including those in the Guard.
In response, the Pentagon rolled out a new policy to shorten Guard mobilizations to no more than 400 days. The Walnut Creek-based battalion is the first California unit called up under the policy.
The intent is that, after training, units should be deployed to war for no more than about 10 months. On the other hand, the policy also allows for soldiers to be mobilized more frequently.
Sgt. Adrian Escorcia hadn't expected to be mobilized again so soon.
Toward the end of his three-day stay at Camp Roberts for soldier readiness screening, the 30-year-old Los Angeles resident sat outside the soldiers' club one breezy evening and reflected on how his future had radically changed.
Six years ago he joined the Guard, instead of the active-duty Army, so that he could remain close to home most of the time. Later, he said, he realized that he had been naive about how often and for how long his enlistment would uproot him.
A week before being summoned to Camp Roberts, he had been working, in college and enjoying time with his girlfriend. After returning in March 2006 from a yearlong deployment to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, he thought he had two years before being mobilized again.
He didn't know that the rules had changed.
"You've been told you're going to have two years off when you come back," Escorcia said. "You feel: 'OK, cool, I can relax.'"
He said he will fight in Iraq for himself and his comrades. Because he's being deployed so soon after returning home, he will not re-enlist and has no enthusiasm for the battalion's mission.
"My view about the war? It's not my war. I don't care. I just don't want to be in it," Escorcia said. "I'll go. But this is it. This is my last one."
One Sunday in late April, about 100 soldiers and their loved ones gathered inside the Walnut Creek armory for a "family readiness briefing." It was one of about a dozen such briefings across the state that day to prepare for the battalion's mobilization.
Representatives of military and veterans groups talked about an array of services for soldiers and families. Then, the battalion commander spoke plainly about the tough times ahead.
"The bottom line is we got called up because the country needs us," Falk said. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's not dangerous, but I'll do everything in my power to bring everyone home in one piece."
Sgt. 1st Class Mark Bowers and his wife, Dana, both 39, discussed the danger. At night, after they put their 11-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter to bed, they sat together in their Fairfield house and considered the worst possibilities.
"We've actually had some deeper conversations about more meaningful things: What could happen and what we need to do," said Dana Bowers.
They have discussed what medical care the 18-year Army veteran wants if he is wounded in Iraq. They have discussed the funeral services he wants if he does not survive. They have discussed his will.
"You should have that all thought of when you're married," Dana Bowers said. But until forced to face them, they are "subjects you just don't want to approach."
She was not the first person in her family to learn that her husband would be going to Iraq.
He broke the news to the couple's son, Nic, as father and son chopped firewood in the backyard. The sixth-grader was told he would need to shoulder more household responsibility to help his mother and sister during his father's absence.
"In order for me to feel comfortable with being able to go and take care of what the country's asking me to do, I need to make sure that my family's taken care of, and Nic is a big part of that," said Mark Bowers.
"I do not expect him to do all of the things that I do, but I need him to step up a little bit."
The relatively rapid mobilization left families with several months at most to begin to prepare for soldiers' absences. Some families received only a few weeks' advance notice.
Mark Bowers changed the oil in the family vehicles, bought a Christmas gift for his brother-in-law and, with family and friends, tackled a list of home-improvement projects.
Dealwis, the Sri Lankan immigrant, and Malasavanh, the 21-year-old Antioch resident and child of Laotian immigrants, quit working to spend more time with their families. Staff Sgt. Tony Sessoms, 38, of San Jose moved out of his apartment and put his belongings in storage.
Arellano and Ortega tied the knot.
It wasn't the big, family-filled wedding that they envisioned, but they didn't have time to do more before Arellano left for training.
They were wed in a bare county clerk's office in Martinez by a deputy county commissioner. A wooden lectern stood in for an altar. Ortega's parents couldn't make it from Los Angeles.
"OK, Dad, I got to go," Ortega said in a quick phone call before the ceremony. "I love you, too."
Still, what mattered to the bride and groom was that they be married before he left for war.
"I'm really excited," Arellano said. "We're going to get this done."
He wore his dress uniform with medals and rows of colorful Army ribbons pinned to his chest. She wore a white dress with a flower print. The couple exchanged vows and rings bought the day before. A half-dozen family members and friends witnessed the event.
When the simple ceremony was over fewer than four minutes after it began, there was a round of hugs and handshakes. He grinned. She teared up while reassuring the couple's daughter.
"Mom's happy," she told the toddler, who was apparently perplexed by the emotional occasion. "That's why Mom's crying."
As guests wished the newlyweds well, there was little talk of the hardships to come during the year ahead.
At one point, Arellano and a comrade discussed the best way to wear a wedding ring to prevent it from being lost in combat. Wear it on the ring finger, slip it onto the thin necklace that holds a soldier's dog tags, or thread it through a wristwatch band.
The newlyweds went to brunch afterward and then set out in search of a self-storage unit. Within a week, he would travel to Camp Roberts for training and she would move back to Los Angeles.
Before leaving home for training, Arnold, the Concord soldier, said goodbye to more than just friends and family.
One day on the playground at Westwood Elementary School, dozens of children swarmed around him. It was evident that Arnold, a 23-year-old teacher's assistant at the school's day care, preschool and kindergarten, has many fans.
"We spend a lot of time with him because we think he's cool," gushed 9-year-old Emily Cortes. "He does a lot of cool projects, and he's really fun to hang around with."
Arnold had impressed the children with his willingness to play tetherball and by singing songs while playfully marching them around the playground. He also had pinned nicknames on them, including 9-year-old Brandon Moore, or "B-Dog."
In turn, they came up with a suitable nickname for him.
"He's called 'The Glitter Guy,' cause he uses glitter," said 10-year-old Kurtis Wiseman. "Every single project he has uses glitter."
The children plan to send their idol care packages and to follow "Lee's Journey" on a world map posted to a classroom wall. A ribbon marked the start of a trek that will span an ocean and two continents.
"That's awesome," Arnold said. "I love these kids."
Dressed in his camouflage uniform, Arnold returned to the school for a farewell a few days before leaving home. As excited as the children were to see him, they were sad that he would be gone and in peril for so long.
"He's, like, really funny and he does a lot of goofy things," said 10-year-old Sequoia Huerta. "We're going to miss him a lot."
Arnold would miss them, too, but he also felt compelled by duty, pride and a hunger for adventure to embark on his first combat tour. He had enlisted partly in admiration of a grandfather who rose to the highest rank of warrant officer in the Army.
"It's an honor to go, and by honor I mean it's kind of a transition into manhood," said Arnold. "I know it sounds a little weird, but I'm a little excited to go. I'm an adventurous person."
From the sight of smiling children, to the embrace of a spouse, to the taste of a favorite meal, soldiers said such cherished memories will help them through tough times in Iraq.
On a warm and breezy afternoon in Pittsburg's Buchanan Park, hamburger patties sizzled on a grill, bottles of beer chilled on ice and Arellano and Ortega basked in the company of more than a dozen friends and relatives.
The couple's daughter was never far from her parents' loving gaze as she sat on a towel flanked by plush toy animals or roamed the lawn in search of dandelions.
Minding the grill was one of Arrellano's three brothers, Allen Arellano Jr., 20. The college student had driven through the night from Southern California to visit his brother, the oldest of eight children, before he left for Iraq.
Friends, comrades and former co-workers rounded out the cheerful gathering. Also on hand was the family patriarch, 48-year-old Allen Arellano of South San Francisco, a burly and affable warehouse worker.
When his son called him at work about a week earlier to tell him that he was returning to Iraq, the former Marine was so rattled by the news that he couldn't eat his lunch. Despite his good humor and appetite at the barbecue, he remained troubled.
"I had to come here and smile without thinking about this too much," Allen Arellano said. "I'm not a gambling man, but I think the odds aren't in my favor."
The picnic was a last-minute event, thrown together when it became clear that Carlos Arellano was returning to Iraq. He was grateful for the opportunity to relax with family and friends even for just an afternoon.
"Oh, I need it," he said. "I needed it the first time (before going to Iraq), and I think I need it more the second time."
In fewer than two weeks, he would report to Camp Roberts. A month after that he would continue training in New Jersey. And about three months after that he would begin his second combat tour.
By the time his boots hit the ground in Iraq, the idyllic barbecue will be just a fond memory.
"I know for sure we're going to get into some heavy stuff," Arellano said. "So, that's why this right here is soaking in deep."
Dogen Hannah covers the military and the home front. Reach him at 925-945-4794 or dhannah@cctimes.com.
Ellie