Photo By Marti Gatlin | The Sloan family is all smiles after they are together again, Feb. 8. Gunnery Sgt....... read more read more
ALBANY, Ga. — Sisters, Cierah, 9, and Cicely, 3, may have received the best surprise in the last eight months, Feb. 8.
Outfitted in red, white and blue, the Sloan youngsters thought they were going to Southwest Georgia Regional Airport in Albany with mom to greet another Marine, not dad, who was coming home from a deployment.
Much to their surprise, daddy - Gunnery Sgt. Fredrick Sloan - ran toward them after they entered the airport terminal. Sloan, who served eight months in Afghanistan, hugged and kissed each daughter as well as his wife, Kia.
Sloan, who served as the branch staff non-commissioned officer-in-charge, senior supply representative and sports outreach lead with Headquarters International Security Assistance Force, Traditional Communication Branch in Afghanistan, also shook hands with Marines and civilian-Marines, who came to welcome him home.
Col. Terry V. Williams, commanding officer, MCLB Albany, described Sloan’s return as “a great deal. I was getting some emails from him while he was out there and he was doing some great things working on the ISAF staff, so it’s exciting to have him back. His wife, who is one of the leaders in our volunteer network, has just done a great job not only holding down the fort but also helping other people. It’s a great moment to have him back. He looks good.”
Sloan, who extended for two months to serve eight months in Afghanistan, described his tour there.
“Being a multi-service force, we partnered with senior-ranking Afghan officials to help further their programs,” he said. “If it was youth, we worked directly with the youth minister to help come up with programs to make it better for the youth; same thing with sports and religion and borders and tribes. One of the things we actually did was we brought a group of eight Afghans to the U.S. to give them an idea of what sports looked like in the U.S.”
The Marine, who’s served 19 years in the Marine Corps, said he really enjoyed the mission he was part of.
“What I was doing felt like it was making a difference, so I wanted to stick around for awhile longer,” Sloan said. “We actually did a youth assembly there in the capital city of Kabul. We had (more than) 250 youth representing every province in Afghanistan all come to the capital for kind of like a meeting to talk about what the government as well as the ISAF forces can do to help the youth in Afghanistan and get ideas from them on what they thought Afghanistan needed.
“For the most part, it was very positive feedback from them. Most of them had a positive outlook about the ISAF forces there (as well as) what the coalition forces were there for,” he said.
Sloan recommended junior Marines should strive to deploy and experience deployments like the one he just completed.
“I think the younger Marines should definitely get an opportunity to deploy,” he said. “Working in that environment gives you a different outlook. Even in a combat environment there’s work to be
done and there’s good people. A lot of times we think everybody over there is out to kill us and they all hate Americans and they all hate the forces, but there’s a lot of great people and different ministers I worked with (who) are really striving to make that country a better place.”
Now that Sloan is home, he said he will rest and watch recorded college football games.
He also talked about his little ladies, his daughters, who’ve grown while he was gone.
“They’ve definitely grown a bit,” he said. “We were able to Skype maybe once or twice a month to kind of stay in contact. They sent me letters and cards and care packages.”
Holding welcome home signs and balloons, Sloan’s family gathered around him.
“Words cannot describe how I feel right now,” Kia said. “We are going to go home and I think the girls will take over from there. We are just going to relax, probably take a vacation within the next month or two.”
She added she missed her husband’s companionship while he was gone.
“Believe it or not, this was his first real deployment,” Kia said. “When we first got married he deployed to Cuba for about two months and this was the longest he has ever been gone. Friends and family made it easy. Volunteering kept me busy. It wasn’t as bad as I anticipated it to be.”
Cierah said she was happy her dad came home and looked forward to spending time with him doing various activities.
Cicely said she was excited when she saw him come into the airport terminal.
“I’m very happy,” she said.
| Date Taken: | 02.08.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 02.16.2012 08:32 |
| Story ID: | 83929 |
| Location: | ALBANY, GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 43 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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