Joel Anderson, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Saturday, April 19, 2008
Melinda Harris gives her husband, Mark, a kiss before he departs from Brooksville on Friday morning for Fort Sill in Oklahoma. Mark Harris is a helicopter pilot.
SPRING HILL — With tears in her eyes, Cassy Freeman tilted her head toward the sky and said another silent goodbye to her father.
Freeman then watched as her father, Ray Freeman, guided one of eight Black Hawk helicopters through the air and off into an uncertain future. He was somewhere up there, and somehow, that was reassuring for the moment.
"I'm so proud of him," said Freeman, 16, a junior at Nature Coast High School.
Freeman was one of nearly 300 people who gathered Friday morning at Anderson Snow Park — many of them in red T-shirts — to watch members of the Florida Army National Guard unit based in Brooksville leave for a yearlong deployment to Iraq.
The event was organized by local military volunteer groups and advocates as a sort of visible "Thank You" to Guard members as they made a flyover on their way to Fort Sill in Oklahoma.
About 80 members of the 1st Battalion 244th and 1st Battalion 111th Aviation regiments of the Florida Army National Guard will first head to Oklahoma for several weeks of training and then go to Iraq as part of their deployment.
"We just asked people to be here and wish the guys well," said Barbara Newlin, a Spring Hill member of the group Treat the Troops. "We really want to let them know that we care about them and we appreciate what they're doing for us."
The supporters who made their way to Anderson Snow Park on Friday morning were lined up in one of the fields. They waved American flags and held up signs as the guard members flew over at 9:12 a.m.
Doc Hofmeister, a Vietnam veteran who recently helped to organize RedShirtFridays.org, said the gathering was more a show of appreciation than a political statement.
"We just need to support them as a country," Hofmeister said. "When they see all these people in red, they know it's for them."
Freeman said she hoped this was only the start of public displays of support for soldiers like her father. "I think everyone needs to support them," Freeman said. "They're over there for a good cause."
Joel Anderson can be reached at joelanderson@sptimes.com or 754-6120.
News
