Posted on 12/17/2003 1:51:48 PM PST by nickcarraway
LOWER TOWNSHIP - It was the luck of the draw, and bad luck at that. New Jersey Army National Guard Specialist Jonathan Hinker drew too high of a number, leaving him to spend Christmas in Iraq.
Then Spc. James Presnall, a 20-year-old Galloway Township native with no wife or children at home, stepped in - he offered Hinker his spot on the holiday homecoming express.
Hinker, a 34-year-old Fulling Mill Road resident, thought the worst after picking his number from a lottery to see who would go home for the holidays.
Although he loved serving his country, the soldier with the Cape May Court House-based 253rd Transportation Company missed his wife, Buffi, and his young son, Joseph, after serving in Iraq for eight months.
"He (Presnall) felt it was more important Jon was able to come home for his family. He gave up his opportunity to come home," a very appreciative Buffi Hinker said.
When Presnall told his parents, Howard and Toni Presnall, they were so proud of their son's selfless action that it overrode their disappointment about not seeing him during the holidays.
"We told him we'd love to see him, but we are proud of him for doing this for a guy with a wife and young child. I was real proud of James," Toni Presnall said.
It was a pleasant surprise for Buffi Hinker. Even though the Presnalls knew, and they see Buffi every week at meetings for the 253rd families, they kept quiet at Jonathan's request.
"Jon wanted to surprise me," Buffi said.
Hinker arrived home Monday, and the move is already paying off in all sorts of small but significant ways for the Hinker family. Joseph, 7, gets to bring his father to school today. How cool is that for a first-grader?
And Buffi gets a little relief out of the deal. She has been working her full-time job as a secretary for the Lower Township Police Department while running the family business, Victorian Cape Limo, by herself since April. She is also doing all the parenting while her husband is away. Not that she is complaining.
"They're doing something that's very important so I'm able to go without a lot of sleep and get it done," she said. "It means everything to me that my son considers him a hero. My husband wouldn't be the man he is if he didn't do this."
Hinker brought home a glimpse of what life is like for 253rd, which has now completed more than 300 missions in Iraq and put more than 750,000 miles on their trucks. They have mostly been hauling supplies along dangerous desert roads from central Iraq to Mosul, in the north, where the 101st Airborne Division commanded by Villas native Col. Michael Linnington is based. The 101st has seen major action during the war and suffered many casualties.
"We support the 101st. We live and sleep with the 101st, the infantry guys. That's all we do is missions with them," Hinker said.
One day, Hinker said, a Lower Cape May Regional High School buddy of his pulled up on a mountain bike at a camp 35 miles south of Mosul they call "Key West."
Chief Warrant Officer Bryan Wuerker, an Apache helicopter pilot with the 101st., was getting some exercise. Thousands of miles from home, in the middle of a war, the two high school buddies ran into each other.
Hinker said his father and brother were both in the military, but it was Wuerker who inspired him to join up. That was eight years ago, a few years after Wuerker served with the 253rd during Desert Storm.
"He told me how good the Guard was. I saw a great opportunity to serve my country and give something back to my community," Hinker said.
Primarily a medic, Hinker said he has also manned the guns but this aspect of his work is classified so he can give no details.
"We have to do what we have to do out there," he said.
The great majority along the routes do not attack but welcome the Americans, he said. Women run up and hug them, elderly men shake their hands and happy children surround them at every stop wanting their pictures taken. College students in buses, finally going back to school, wave at them. Hinker said it makes it all worthwhile.
"The people feel we gave them back their freedom. They say thank you. That's pretty powerful. It makes it all worth it," he said. "The press has a lot of negative stuff but there is a lot of positive out there. There is negative, it's war, but there is a lot more that is positive. We're fighting for a people's freedom, and our own freedom."
Entertainment is watching movies on DVD's and laptops. The unit recently got a satellite television setup but the only U.S. station coming in well, via the Air Force, is ESPN II. Hinker's medic duties sometimes give him little time for entertainment.
"When we first got there a lot of us got sick. We still don't know what it was. We called it the 101st virus."
The days are getting cooler now in the desert, with highs in the 70s compared with summer temperatures higher than 100 degrees, so he is hooking up fewer IVs to replenish fluids. Somehow, Hinker even found time to run in the U.S. Army's 10-Mile Run that was telecast in the states. He ran with Specialist Daniel Freeman of Pleasantville.
Hinker was in Kuwait on the first leg of his trip home when he heard Saddam Hussein had been captured. He cheered with other soldiers but does not believe it will shorten the war. He said the whole country must be rebuilt and the people must learn how to deal with freedoms they sometimes almost seem scared to have.
"It will be an uphill battle but they have something to work with. Before, they had nothing," Hinker said.
To e-mail Richard Degener at The Press:
RDegener@pressofac.com
There are a lot of guys coming back on these rotations (my daughter's best friend's dad is back right now for his 15-day rotation), and they're giving these local interviews. People are getting the message.
A generous heart is a good heart. God bless you and yours!
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