Serving together in the Iowa National Guard: A family affair

PARWAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – The National Guard has a long history of families serving together to strengthen their community and protect their country.  There is no better example of this the family members deployed along with more than 2,800 Iowa Army National Guard Soldiers currently serving in Operation Enduring Freedom, the largest call-up of Iowa forces since World War II.

Among those family members are two brothers serving in two separate task forces in the 34th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Task Force Red Bulls, They met recently for a promotion ceremony.

“My brother called me and told me to come and promote him,” said U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Garry Waldon Jr., of Des Moines, Iowa, and acting first sergeant for the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 334th Brigade Support Battalion, TF Archer, serving at Bagram Airfield. “He’s my younger brother. I wouldn’t pass that up.”

Waldon travelled to Combat Outpost Pul-E-Sayad Feb. 7 to promote his brother U.S. Army Sgt. Brandon Corbett, also of Des Moines, Iowa, and a truck commander with Troop A, 1st Squadron, 113th Calvary Regiment, TF Redhorse.

“It helps to have a family member in the Guard,” said Waldon. “Although my brother and I have very different jobs, we understand each other.  He stops by my office when he is passing through Bagram and uses me to vent.”

Family members serving together in the Iowa National Guard seem to be a tradition within the Red Bulls division.

“Sometimes you hear about family members serving together in active duty units, but it is not common,” said U.S. Army Col. Benjamin Corell, the TF Red Bulls commander from Strawberry Point, Iowa.  “In the Guard we are responsible for recruiting and we tend to look to family, friends and neighbors.”

“Recruiting in the National Guard was not always at 100 percent, like it is today,” continued Corell. “I remember when my brigade commander Brig. Gen. Michael Beaman told us to go out and find recruits.  He suggested finding people we would feel comfortable going to war with.  You are comfortable with your friends and family.  In the smaller Iowan communities, service becomes a community tradition.”

Even the brigade commander’s family follows that tradition. Corell’s three sons are all staff sergeants in the Iowa Guard and all served together with their father in 2003 in Sinai. 

Corell is currently serving with one of his sons, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Wade Corell, of Denver, Iowa, and a medical platoon sergeant with a part of the brigade based out of Laghman Province.

Although having multiple family members serving overseas may increase the anxiety of family back home, it gives the deployed Soldiers someone to rely on.

“There are advantages to serving with your sons, although it increases the potential for something bad happening in the family,” said Corell.  “I have had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with my sons overseas, and not everyone can do that here.”

It’s not just fathers, sons, and brothers either. U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Darla Sward of Boone, Iowa, and the maintenance noncommissioned officer–in-charge of support operations for TF Archer, has a very unique situation. She is serving with her son-in-law, U.S. Army Spc. Gabe Lanz, of Des Moines, Iowa, a gunner with Troop B, TF Redhorse.

“I like being able to see my son-in-law,” said Sward. “We go to lunch together when we can. I even got to go shopping with him once to buy things for my daughter.”

For Soldiers who don’t have family members serving with them, they still have their squad members there acting as family and bonding just the same. But in almost every unit, one will find brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, cousins and friends in the National Guard to serve their communities and serve their nation, together.