By Cali Bagby
Snow was falling and a white fog of clouds hung outside the UH-60 Blackhawk’s window. On the mountain below, medic Sgt. 1st Class Will Welborn, 37, of Silverton stood near a patient suffering from a broken back after his plane crashed.
“We had to leave them there,” said Staff Sgt. James Tournay, 36, of Silverton, senior crew chief on the mission, seated inside a compound in Al Asad, Iraq. So Tournay dropped off the survival gear before the Blackhawk, low on gas, left to refuel before finishing the rescue.
“By the time we got back, the patient was on a backboard, a shelter was built and a fire was going. They were prepared to stay the night,” Tournay said, recalling as he pulled Welborn and the patient on a hoist into the helicopter before the pilots flew them all to safety.
For soldiers in the C/7-158 Medevac unit now stationed in Iraq, missions like that represent the bond between soldiers and their role in Oregon.
“We love being able to give back to the state by flood relief, fire fighting and rescuing hikers,” Welborn said. Now more than 2,000 of Oregon’s National Guard soldiers from Medevac and the 41st are serving their state from afar. As Christmas approaches, soldiers shared their love for the mission, how they cope with homesickness, and the brotherhood they have found in a foreign land.
“The (Medevac) mission is very important. We’ve transported a tremendous amount of blood,” Welborn said, adding he is on his second deployment. “Working as a nurse in the civilian world, I realize how important that blood is when you need it.”
For Tournay, Medevac is the best job in the world.
“Every time you save one person, you’re not actually saving one person, you’re saving their friends and family,” he said “You’re saving them the grief of losing someone.”
On his current base in Al Asad, days go by without a mission, but soldiers are prepared to wait. They occupy their minds with video games, movies, building bonfires, playing cards and football.
On most days you can hear Tournay and medic Spc. Matt Mohr, 28, of Silverton, strumming their guitars. Mohr stays busy, but makes sure to call his wife every day and check on his daughter.
“It was hard to leave, but I knew I had to do my job back here,” said Mohr, who had his vacation just after his daughter’s birth in July. “It’s hard not being able to be there, help out and watch her grow.”
Soldiers in the 41st are also dealing with separation from their loved ones. Maintenance supervisor Sgt. 1st Class David Raymond, 51, of Mt. Angel, of the Headquarter Headquarters Company of the 41st Special Troops Battalion stationed in Baghdad, Iraq, tries not to think about home. “It’s almost like they’ve gone on with their lives and it doesn’t include me,” said Raymond, whose wife and four children are in Oregon. “I have a whole other life that doesn’t include them.”
Raymond calls home often, but notices the rift time makes. “You call, you want to talk, but there is nothing to say,” he said.
Platoon leader Lt. Matthew Branstetter, 34, of Silverton, of Charlie Co., 1-186, of the 41st Infantry stationed in Camp Korean Village, Iraq, is on his second deployment, but in a much different situation. Branstetter was single on his first tour in Iraq. Now as a husband and father to a son and newborn daughter, he often asks himself, “How is this going to affect the family?” He can only hope someday his children will be proud of him.
“I looked up to my father for being an officer,” Branstetter said. “He was my hero.” But it was his mother who held the family together, he said. 
Welborn can attest to the fact spouses are the unsung heroes. “I’ve had the unique experience of being a parent down range (on a deployment) and being a parent at home,” said Welborn, who has a teenage daughter and son. “It’s so much easier to be deployed than being home. Single parenting is by far the harder job.”
It can also be difficult for the children of deployed parents. Tournay, on his fourth deployment, recognizes the hardships put on his family, but the experience teaches his 7-year-old son to be independent. “It’s hard because I want him to rely on me,” Tournay said.
These are the sacrifices soldiers make for their work and their country. Tournay and other soldiers rely on friendships to keep them going. “I’m definitely just as close with some as I am with actual family members,” Welborn said about his comrades, especially those he served with in Afghanistan and Oregon.
Being older than most of the troops, Raymond said it keeps him “young to see how the other half lives. I gain stuff from them, too, like how they think, or music. It’s kind of cool.”
Truck commander Sgt. Brandon Foust, 27, of Mt Angel, also in Raymond’s unit, appreciates his interactions with fellow soldiers. Foust spent Thanksgiving with friends from his previous deployment to Afghanistan. They smoked their own turkey on a Traeger grill.
“I’m glad I have friends here, but I’d rather be hanging out with my friends at home,” said Foust, but he feels lucky to perform the long hours of convoy security with friends who are like family. Foust, on his second deployment, doesn’t complain about being in Iraq this holiday season. “I’m used to it,” he said. He’d rather see lower enlisted soldiers with kids go back home for Christmas. “I don’t get all down about it,” he said.
Raymond only has two wishes this holiday season. “Going home, which can’t be soon enough,” he said. “And making sure all my soldiers get home safely.”
Cali Bagby has worked as an embedded journalist with Oregon’s C/7-158 Medevac and the 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team for the past eight months. She graduated from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism in 2008. Her work has been published in the Washington Post, the BBC, High Country News, KVAL.com and KATU.com.
