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

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Over at C Company headquarters, Beets' unit, the captain is Todd (T.K.) Kelly, who manages to appear both sharp and relaxed, as close to cool as regulations allow. Not that it touches his ears, but his hair is probably the longest in the company. At 31, he is a dozen years older than some of his 140 men women can't serve in infantry units like this and has been a soldier longer than that if you count his years at West Point. C Company Private Adam Harting is six months out of high school, with wide blue eyes in a still forming face. He knew that joining the Army could mean going off to fight, but he didn't really expect that to happen this soon. "I just figure there's a lot of people here who take care of me," he says. It's Kelly's job to see that men like Harting have ticked off of everything on their list, from their teeth to their shots, from their weapons to their wills.

Kelly has served long enough to know that deployment also requires all kinds of emotional equipment that the Army doesn't supply. He has been breaking in his suede desert boots at home, walking his new daughter Olivia round and round the house. He's not the only soldier leaving a new baby or a wife with one on the way, so even as his men prepare to go, he tries to prepare them to come back. "They need to know, if they're married, that their spouse is going to become fiercely independent while they're away," he says. "You weren't there to pay the bills or discipline the kids. So you can't come home and kick your feet up and expect that your kids are going to listen to you." Some experienced Army wives recommend making a lifesize photo of Daddy and hanging it where the kids can see it every day, to show he's coming back.

The library invites deploying parents to record their children's favorite books on tape, for the kids to listen to while Mom or Dad is gone. The lines have been long at the Wal-Mart portrait studio. "We tried to do a walk-in yesterday and sat for almost three hours," says Melissa Wiechelman, whose husband Chad is set to move out. At the courthouse in town, there were 39 applications for marriage licenses in the first two weeks of January, up 77% over the same period last year. The yellow ribbons around the lampposts outside are so fresh, they haven't even been rained on yet.

Soldiers are told to get their finances in order, so the Super Pawn and Mr. Cash are doing a good business in used stereo equipment, and lines at fast-tax-return shops stretch out the door. Specialist Erin Gibson, 22, a 4-ft. 11-in. medic and single mother, is waiting outside Jay's Tax Service, hoping for a check against the $2,900 refund she's expecting. She has been told she will be gone by the end of January, which means "my mom has to come get my son. He'll be 2 tomorrow." Over Christmas, she made a videotape for her little boy. "I told him I love him and I miss him. I tried to explain that Mommy has to go help people that get sick or hurt but I'll be back soon."

An exodus this big takes a toll on the town as well. Shop owners are hoping that an influx of Reservists and National Guards will provide enough cash to keep Hinesville alive, but a Wendy's has already closed, and other small businesses may follow. If the troops are gone for more than a year, as many were in 1991, says Realtor Angela Powell, the Chamber of Commerce chairwoman, "we'll all be eating peanut butter." The department of family and children services is bracing for more parents looking for aid and food stamps and for more families in trouble. During the Gulf War, child-abuse cases in the county went up 10%. The key is intervention. "Our goal is to get the word out," says county director Cornelius McCrae. "If you're stressed or having trouble with the kids or the bills, come get help."

On the base, the task of emotional preparedness falls to the social workers and the wives who lead the family-readiness groups attached to every company. They explain how to get car-insurance rates lowered without dropping the deployed spouse from the policy. They've arranged for the local department of motor vehicles to offer driving tests in the many languages of Army wives, like Korean. They instruct families about what not to stick in the care packages they send over: any overtly religious books or objects likely to give offense to Kuwaiti Muslims, any pork products, any magazine with revealing pictures of women, whether it's Maxim or Vogue; absolutely no alcohol.