Moving Out

ANDRE LAMBERTSON/CORBIS SABA FOR TIME
Stocking up on hugs: As he prepares to deploy to Kuwait, Corporal Tracey D. Beets is embraced by his son D'Artagnan

D'artagnan Beets, 3, is in the corner, dueling with his dad. He's thumping him with big red inflatable sock-'em boppers, squealing every time he lands a good blow. Corporal Tracey Beets is pretty skilled at protecting himself quick eyes, good moves, bulging arms under a NO GUTS, NO GLORY tattoo but this is one fight he's happy to lose, because defeat comes with a hug, and there's not time for many more.

The walls around him tell the story of how he got here to this second-floor apartment in a wooded subdivision at the Army's Fort Stewart, near Hinesville, Ga. There's the framed letter from New York Governor George Pataki, thanking the former Marine for his service as a National Guardsman on Sept. 11, which consisted mainly of preventing distraught fire fighters and cops from rushing in to try to find their lost comrades. There are letters from the White House and the Pentagon, responding to his campaign last year to be allowed back on active duty, which, since he was 36, required a waiver. And there are pictures of his wife Anna and their sons D'Artagnan and 7-week-old Alexander, whose world he wants to fix. Beets thinks it's time to take the fight to America's enemies. He does not talk about his unit's imminent deployment to Kuwait as just another training exercise.

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It was one thing to slip past the Army's rules. It was something else to get past Anna. "I fought him all the way about re-enlisting," she says, as she sits on the couch rocking the baby, watching CNN. "Sometimes I get so mad at him," she says. "Why did he have to volunteer for this?" Then she looks at him and answers her own question. "He's a really good man, and it means so much to him." When he was seeking to re-enlist, the Army offered more options than the Marines, especially to an older soldier. "In the Marine Corps," Tracey notes, "the philosophy is, if they want you to have a family, they'll issue you one." So now this family finds itself at Fort Stewart, about to be ripped in half.

In living rooms across the base and in the towns surrounding it, tonight is all about packing the canteens, the flak vest, the gas mask, the extra socks. "I have about 18 pair with me," Beets says, because "you can't put a price on comfort." On the closet door hang his desert tan fatigues, sharp with new creases. Members of Beets' unit, Charlie Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, got word today that they should switch from their standard Army green camis to tan, intended to make infantrymen like Beets invisible in the sand, except for the blindingly bright American flag they have to sew on the right shoulder when they're about to deploy overseas so that allies can distinguish U.S. troops at close quarters.

These soldiers are trained to move out fast and often, but not since the 1991 Gulf War has the entire 3rd Infantry Division, to which Beets' company belongs, been ordered to deploy at one time. The 15,000 troops plus all manner of support personnel that make up the armored force are just some of the nearly 100,000 U.S. soldiers now moving out from across the country to join the 60,000 already in the gulf. You can track the exodus in numbers. It's harder to track it in lives, unless you come to a place like Fort Stewart and watch a community melt away.

Fort Stewart sits on 280,000 acres of piney woods and swampy fields in the sweet-onion patch of coastal Georgia. This is as regular as regular Army gets: no frills, no illusions, lots of buildings that look as if they were meant to be temporary back in 1941. It's cold this week at Camp Swampy, down in the 20s in the morning as the last-minute training picks up and the clock ticks down for the company commanders. They must make sure that every soldier is qualified to handle his weapon, meaning he can snap-shoot a quarter-inch hole in a soccer ball at 100 yards. They must make sure the right equipment is shipped from helicopters shrink-wrapped in plastic to protect them from the salt air on the ships heading out of Savannah, to flyswatters (a dozen for every 150 men, same for mousetraps).

"Try to imagine having 20,000 soldiers pick up and move out in a three-week period. It's a lot more complicated than it looks," says Colonel Louis Weber. The logistics aren't all military. "You got to get your lawn service done, get your pet taken care of, close out your rent, turn off your cable and phone," he explains.

The combat veterans, for whom deployments are routine, know that what the Army requires its soldiers to bring with them is not the end of what is necessary. Weber still has grateful memories of the Army wife who told him to pack clothespins when he first deployed to the gulf, lest the wind toss his drying uniform in the sand. At the base PX and Wal-Mart, extra tent pegs and shower shoes are selling fast. So are watches with alarms that give the time in two time zones. Twizzlers. Extra thick boot insoles. Liquid laundry soap, because the water will be cold. Extra thermals, because the nights will be too. "Think of being in a tank," says Weber. "For a three-man crew and the tank commander, that tank is your home, and you don't know how long you're going to be there. You don't know when the shower and laundry guys might catch up with you. You don't know when you'll get hot water to shave with. So you take care of yourself, and you better take care of your vehicle, because that's your way back home."