"This is the first time a medevac unit from Ohio [has been] deployed,” company Cmdr. John Howard told the more than 200 attendees.

GREEN A military band played, the chaplain prayed and stand-ins for absent lawmakers made prepared speeches Thursday at the MAPS Air Museum.

But like the historic airplanes at the side of the hangar and the giant U.S. flag that adorned the facing wall, they were background to the friends and families of Company C.

The deployment ceremony, after all, was for the 30 Ohio Army National Guard soldiers on their way to southwest Asia to support Operation Spartan Shield.

“This is the first time a medevac unit from Ohio [has been] deployed,” company Cmdr. John Howard told the more than 200 attendees.

For about half the soldiers, it is also their first deployment, Howard said.

Col. Daniel Shank, Ohio assistant adjutant general for the Army, told the assembled families that they are the glue that holds things together while their loved ones are overseas.

“That sacrifice is real, but it’s also shared,” he said. “And it’s shared with every family in this room.”

No one felt that more than Michele and Richard Young. The Toledo couple has four boys and one girl, their youngest.

She’s Spc. Jessica Fleig, and she’s in Company C.

Richard Young is a Vietnam veteran, and he knows a bit about fighting.

“I had no idea she was going to join the service,” he said.

Fleig said her parents thought they’d dodged a bullet when her four brothers opted not to join the military.

“They didn’t think they had to worry about it,” she said.

But she surprised them, putting her studies at Mercy College of Ohio on hold. Her parents said they’re proud of Fleig but worried.

“We were going to take her to Canada,” Michele Young said.

Despite their apprehension, dad and daughter banter back and forth about the army versus the Marines.

While Fleig is deployed, her parents will be waiting patiently for her to return.

“We are going to leave her room exactly as she left it,” her father said.

Stow resident Toni Kenney was at the ceremony for her grandson, whom she preferred not to name.

Stepgrandmother Sue Mortimer of Palmyra Township was also there to lend support.

“We are very proud and a little worried,” Kenney said. “[But] we live in the United States of America, and someone has to be strong.”

It’s the third deployment for Sgt. Micah Burgess, and the second since he met his wife, Esten Burgess. But it’s his first deployment since the Columbus-area couple married.

Micah Burgess said that he knows what’s coming, and that makes this time easier.

But Esten Burgess said this deployment is more difficult than the one before they were married. The couple is expecting a Christmas baby. That’s one concern.

“It is different,” Esten Burgess said. “There’s more responsibility. It becomes a little more complex.”

If nothing else, communicating with loved ones at home has become easier, Micah Burgess said.

During his first deployment, the military used landlines, with soldiers waiting for the limited phone time. The second deployment, communications by computer were possible.

Now, he said, soldiers use their own phones.

The improved technology might help, Esten Burgess said, but it’s no replacement for the real thing.

“Goodbyes are always hard,” she said.