OK In-Depth; Lt. Col. David Jordan 45th Brigade Iraq Deployment Interview

After spending the holidays at home with their friends and families, 2400 members of the Oklahoma National Guard's 45th Infantry Brigade head back to Fort Bliss, Texas this week, on their way to a 10-month deployment to Iraq. One of the soldiers heading out today is Lieutenant Colonel David Jordan from Midwest City. As part of our occasional series checking in with members of the 45th Infantry Brigade, I had a chance several months ago to speak with Lieutenant Colonel Jordan and his wife Melinda. Just before he left for training, at the time he said he was extremely busy. A lot of packing and trying to get last minute things taken care of with all the normal stuff that you got to do around the house and just kind of making sure that Melinda knows about paying the bills and kind of transferring all that stuff over. What do you know at this point about where you'll be in Iraq and what you'll be doing? I'll have about a 30-man team that will be responsible for a lot of logistic support for the base. We're going to be in southern Iraq doing a variety of security missions and detainee operations. Melinda, how are you feeling right about now?

You've got just a few days left. I make just for it to get underway and get it over with because it's going to be a long year. So, sooner the better. You say a long year? I mean, it'll be a lot different with him. Ghani is the house will be a lot quieter. It'll definitely be different. Not having two of us to run the kids everywhere, you know, logistically, it'll be different and harder. Has he ever been away for this long? He was deployed to San Antonio for a year, but we could see him about once a month or every other month then, so not like this. He's kind of his a lot of things, but we're going to take a lot of pictures and lots of videos to keep him up to date. I guess you're all thankful for technology now. The appointments are a lot different than they were. Absolutely. Yeah, I can't imagine what it was like before waiting weeks and weeks on just a letter there. So, this will be a lot easier for us than it was then. Where will you turn to for support while he's gone? My family. My family is here. And then there are other wives that are in his unit. There's a family readiness group that will get together, you know, periodically to go over the things that we might be in need of, but other than that, just probably my family.

Given the parameters of what you're allowed to discuss once you're deployed, once you're in Iraq, how much do you plan on telling Melinda? I mean, some people. It's two extremes. And what I've heard some people want to tell everything other people kind of don't want their wives to know certain things just so they don't worry too much. I'll probably tell her as much as I can, because I think the more they know about what I'm doing day to day, hopefully the less they'll worry. But, you know, they know I've been doing this a long time, so I think they know that I'm not going to be out there taking crazy chances of doing that kind of stuff. What about a year from now returning back here and kind of, you know, coming from a war zone and reintegrating into normal kind of everyday life? How do you think that transition will be? I don't think that'll be too difficult, based on what we're doing. I think that one of the things that I noticed when I was gone before, it's pretty easy to fall back into the trap of almost being single, you know, when you've only got one person to worry about, life gets pretty simple.

And then all of a sudden, you come back and there's kids and ball games and dogs and grass to mow and all of a sudden, you're a lot busier than you think you really are. Lieutenant Colonel David Jordan is one of 2400 members of the Oklahoma National Guard's 45th Infantry Brigade, heading to Fort Bliss, Texas today and route to deployment to Iraq. We hope to occasionally check back in with him and his wife Melinda and other members of the 45th over the next 10 months. Visit our website at KGOU.org to see a photo of Jordan and his wife and also to listen to our past interviews with other soldiers being deployed, as well as Brigadier General Miles Deering. I'm KGOU News Director Scott Gourian.