PHOENIX –

HANNAH LAWRENCE/CRONKITE NEWS: Twenty families said goodbye today to members of the Arizona National Guard headed to Guantanamo Bay. Reporter Darby Fitzgerald was at the send-off ceremony and spoke with some of the soldiers about their deployment.

DARBY FITZGERALD/CRONKITE NEWS: Families and friends gathered today to send off these 20 Army National Guard soldiers.

CAPT. AMANDA HAMMOND/NATIONAL GUARD: We’re not going to have bullets flying at us like we would in Afghanistan or Iraq and we’re all grateful for that and I know our families are as well.

DARBY FITZGERALD/CRONKITE NEWS: The unit is deploying to Guantanamo Bay. Their job there is to ensure transparency supporting “Operation Enduring Freedom.” These men and women will be away from home for almost a year.

SPC. MONIQUE QUINONES/NATIONAL GUARD: We’ll stay in touch. The Army is really good about making sure we can keep talking to our families while we’re away.

DARBY FITZGERALD/CRONKITE NEWS: But it’s never easy to leave. Especially for Sgt. Reba Benally and her daughter who has special needs. Julieanne will be staying with some of Sgt. Benally’s friends.

SGT. REBA BENALLY/NATIONAL GUARD: This was a decision… something that I’ve always wanted to do, and I think just for being the mother of a special-needs child it’s difficult to go for things that you wanted to go for, but I think we’re making the right decision.

DARBY FITZGERALD/CRONKITE NEWS: And for the other soldiers, they are looking forward to the experience.

SPC. MONIQUE QUINONES/NATIONAL GUARD: This is a new job for me and is for a lot of other people. They brought a lot of new people into the unit for this deployment, and so we all went through a long school. And that was an accomplishment.

DARBY FITZGERALD/CRONKITE NEWS: In Phoenix, Darby Fitzgerald, Cronkite News.

HANNAH LAWRENCE/CRONKITE NEWS: The unit leaves for Fort Dix, New Jersey, on the 26th of this month for more training and then they’ll travel to Cuba in October.