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Local soldier on third deployment
Twice to Iraq, now Afghanistan
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Army Staff Sgt. Jimmy Terbay always wanted to be a soldier.
Finally becoming one filled "a void" in his life, the 29-year-old Dayton native said.
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Since enlisting in 1999, Terbay has served wherever the military has needed him.
He was in Iraq from February 2003 through January 2004. That November, he was sent back to Iraq for 13 more months.
Now he's in Afghanistan with the 173rd Airborne Brigade out of Fort Bragg, N.C., running a direct support maintenance team for all ground equipment. His 15-month tour of duty there is slated to end in July 2008.
For Terbay, multiple deployments come with the job.
For his mother, it's been difficult watching a son go off to war again and again in a war marked by multiple deployments.
"I ache," said Sue Terbay, 60, of Dayton. "How could they ask any more of these young men and women than they've already given?"
The 60-year-old mother of six sees the sacrifices soldiers are making. Staff Sgt. Terbay's daughter, Chirison, who will soon be 4, was born when he was in Iraq the first time. His son, Jimmy Jr., who turns 1 soon, is almost walking.
"It's been very difficult on all of us," said Staff Sgt. Terbay, whose wife Brandy and children remain in Bamberg, Germany, where he was stationed before going to Afghanistan.
"I always say my wife has the hardest job while I'm gone. I just have to stay alive. She has to run the house, manage our two kids, worry about me and try and tell the kids what daddy's doing and tell them about me so they can know who their dad is," he wrote in an e-mail.
Sue Terbay also worries about recurring problem of slipping discs in her son's back, a condition she said can leave him in excruciating pain and is aggravated by the heavy protective gear soldiers wear.
Staff Sgt. Terbay said he has "no doubt that I can complete any mission."
His mother recently joined the Dayton chapter of Military Families Speak Out, a group whose members are against the war although they have loved ones in uniform.
"He is a soldier — and it doesn't matter the hardships he will endure — it is his job and I respect that of him tremendously," she said.
For Staff Sgt. Terbay, it's about duty.
"My nation needs me more than ever," he said. "All I have to do is look at the young and old, the weak and crippled, the people who need me to fight for them because they are unable to do it themselves. That's what being American is all about."
