Specialist Gil Smith of China Grove deployed with his National Guard unit to Iraq in April.
Smith went as part of E. Co. 1/252/CAB (Command Arms Battallion) National Guard Engineers from Wadesboro. They are part of the 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team.
Some 3,800 Guardsmen from the 30th Brigade will serve in Iraq until February 2010. They make up North Carolina’s largest National Guard unit.
Smith’s parents are Danny and Jennifer Storie of China Grove and Eddie and Linda Smith of Concord.
“We take this time to wish them a safe return,” says his mother, Jennifer Storie.
According to Tarheel Guardsman, the 30th Brigade is “expected to be among the last combat brigades deployed to Iraq as American forces draw down and the Iraqi Army and Police continue to assume responsibility for security in Iraq.”
The 30th, nicknamed “Old Hickory” in honor of North Carolina native Andrew Jackson, served nearly a year in eastern and northern Iraq in 2004 and early 2005 under the 1st Infantry Division.