Courtesy Photo | Staff Sgt. Terri Mumley, with the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain) poses...... read more read more
PARWAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Back in November, the Vermont-based 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain) flew to Fort Polk, La., for some training for their eventual deployment to Afghanistan. While there, the brigade's Public Affairs Office sat down with Staff Sgt. Terri Mumley, and discussed her family's involvement with the military.
It turns out that Mumley, along with her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Mumley, and her sons, Spc. Brandon Bailey and Marine Pfc. Michael Grooms were heading to Afghanistan at the same time.
"I'm proud of [my children]," said Mumley in that interview in November. "We come from a military family. My grandfather was in the Navy, and was taken as a prisoner of war during the Korean War and never came home."
Five months later, the deployment for Mumley and her family is in full swing. The family is spread out all over the country, as the different members are in different units, but recently, Mumley got a surprise visit from her son, Marine Pfc. Michael Grooms.
"He flew up from Kandahar," said Mumley. Her unit - Headquarters, Headquarters Company of the 86th IBCT [Mtn.] is based in Bagram, Afghanistan. "[His unit] had a mission to bring supplies to Kabul, then to Bagram."
Mumley said in November that a huge issue of the separation is the lack of communication, and the initial thought was that the lack of things like cell reception during training was a way to get ready for the deployment.
"From what we see, my husband and I aren't going to be anywhere near each other while we are in country," said Mumley. "He's going to be pretty far away from me. We knew that going into this, and JRTC [the Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk, La.] is our training period for the distance thing."
While cell phone service is what they expected in Afghanistan, Mumley's husband keeps in touch as well as he can.
"We weren't going to do the cell phone thing initially," said Mumley. "We weren't sure my husband was going to have any where he's at. But we got the cell phones, and when he comes in from wherever he's at, at least I know when he's back."
E-mail between Mumley and her husband isn't the easiest thing to do, either.
"My husband is on a base with the Poles," said Mumley. "There's three computers to use on the base, and the language is in Polish, so to do everything is a little difficult."
Though communication is hard, the connection to each other is stronger than Internet lines and cell phone signals.
"For me, my husband and my two sons, this is something we've wanted to do," said Mumley. "I grew up playing Army, and my middle child grew up playing Marines, so it's all I've ever wanted to do. It's what we do."
| Date Taken: | 04.21.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 04.21.2010 01:35 |
| Story ID: | 48442 |
| Location: | BAGRAM AIR FIELD, AF |
| Web Views: | 753 |
| Downloads: | 505 |
This work, The Mumleys In Afghanistan, by SPC Roy Mercon, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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