Louisiana Air National Guard: Largest deployment in 10 years

As members of the Louisiana Air National Guard’s Bayou Militia, Ashley and Michael Martell knew they could face leaving their children behind for duty abroad. And so they will, albeit together. Senior airmen in the 159th Fighter Wing in Belle Chasse, the couple from Baton Rouge is preparing to deploy overseas, leaving their sons, ages 5, 4 and 8 months, with family as they travel to Southwest Asia.

“We both stepped up and said, ‘Yes, we’ll do it,’” Michael Martell said after a deployment ceremony Thursday at the Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base, where Gov. Bobby Jindal highlighted the couple’s service during a speech in a cavernous Navy hangar.

“There is no man or woman here today whose service does not come without a sacrifice,” Jindal told the crowd of airmen, their families and friends.

In what is the largest Louisiana Air National Guard deployment in more than a decade — and the first in more than a decade that the F-15 Eagle fighter pilots deploy overseas for combat air patrols — about 250 members of the wing’s 122nd Fighter Squadron and 159th Maintenance Group are shipping out.

http://www.nola.com/military/