Of all the reasons why he got into coaching and why he stays in it, Carl Gilmore appreciates the role of someone who can lead a group of people into battle, allow them to discover themselves individually, work together as one unit and grow into responsible adults.

Gilmore, whose full-time job of head boys’ basketball coach at Block High School and part-time job is platoon sergeant in the Army Reserves, also has one other thing he likes about his job as head coach.

&uot;You make sure you get the Word &045; the Word is never going to leave you behind,&uot; Gilmore said. &uot;You have to say, ‘I want to go to church and because I want to be something and make my life better.’ Get to church.

&uot;I see no wrong in going to church.

&uot;We’ve got to live with each other, and we all come from different places. But we’ve got to have a commonality somewhere. Hopefully they’ll get something from this and be able to us it in life.&uot;

Gilmore sure has.

He’s back as head coach of the Bears this season as head coach after sitting out last year when he was deployed to the Kuwait. He’s coached the Bears since the 1999-2000 season and was looking forward to coaching a group of seniors last season that he worked as they came up through junior high.

But the government called. As a member of the 1086th transportation unit out of Bunkie, La., he got the call to be deployed to Kuwait and left March 25, 2003.

Not knowing actually how long the deployment would last, school officials had to find a replacement.

Gilmore returned midway through last season with the Bears under the helm of Whitney McCartney. But now he’s back on the sideline coaching and doing what he’s always had a passion for &045; working with kids.

&uot;He’s always excited about coaching,&uot; said his wife, Sharon. &uot;He really enjoys it. There was another coach in place, but he still went out to all the games. He was there to support them in any way he could as soon as he got back. When he was in Kuwait, he was asking about what the team was doing. He’s not in it for the money &045; he’s in it for the love of the kids.&uot;

Even though Gilmore got into coaching later in life, he may have been prepared for it before he entered the field. He served full time in the Army beginning in 1972, joined the reserves in 1977 and had his first deployment in Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Much like players on an athletic team, soldiers form a bond that you don’t find often. When the deployment came, it was just part of the job.

&uot;He says, ‘I know my soldiers are going to be there for me, and I’ll be there for them,’&uot; Sharon said. &uot;He is just a giving person. He’s always wanted to do something with the kids and give back to the community. He loves his kids, now. He really does, and they love him.&uot;

Getting the bad news

Gilmore and Sharon Beckwith married Dec. 30, 2001, and moved into a house in Sicily Island. It was the second marriage for both, and both had children from previous marriages.

Gilmore recalled telling Sharon prior to their wedding of his status with the Army Reserves and how Uncle Sam could call at any time with plans for a deployment.

There went the honeymoon.

Gilmore got the call on his cell phone in January of his unit being shipped out to Camp Victory, Kuwait, and had little time to get ready. By mid-February he arrived at Fort Polk to prepare for six weeks for the mission, and he left out in late March for the deployment that could last well over a year.

&uot;That’s the hardest thing about being deployed &045; telling your wife you’re going to be deployed and I didn’t know when I was coming back,&uot; Gilmore said. &uot;I had to assure her I was going to be all right. I said, ‘Just do what you’ve got to do, and I’ll be back.’ But getting the family together, finding the right time to tell them what was going on and not knowing when I was coming back, it was hard.&uot;

Every deployment is different, he noted, and this one was different from his last mission. That mission was in Saudi Arabia, and he stayed there for six months. This one could last up to two years, and he wasn’t going to Saudi Arabia.

This time he was going to Kuwait with transportation duties that would take him into Iraq and the tumultuous conditions there. He was leaving behind his new wife and family, including daughter Taylor Beckwith, an eighth-grader at the time.

&uot;They wrecked my honeymoon,&uot; Sharon said. &uot;I’ll never forget the day I drove in the carport for work. (Taylor) was screamed and cried, ‘Why didn’t you tell me Carl was going to the war?’ She squeezed me so hard she almost took me off my feet. She was devastated.

&uot;I was trying to support him and keep strong for the kids, but inside your heart is hurting. But you keep up the faith. I just pretty much depended on my church and family here.&uot;

Life was hard at first with Sharon and Taylor. With Gilmore being the one who kept up with paying household bills, Sharon had to take over that responsibility &045; one she got better at after the phone was temporarily cut off.

Taylor slept with her mom every night, and the two couldn’t relate with many others in the unit’s support group since it was their first time involved in something like this.

&uot;I said, ‘We’ll take it &045; we’ve got to take it,’&uot; Sharon said. &uot;We can’t get him back. It was different. It was just totally new.&uot;

Meanwhile Gilmore was taking to his duties of platoon sergeant at Camp Victory, nine hours ahead of Catahoula Parish and the rest of the Central time zone. At first he couldn’t speak much with his wife and daughter or anyone else back home, and soon he bought a personal cell phone there to stay in touch.

It was spring when he arrived, and Gilmore said by then the heat in the middle of the day was almost unbearable. Soon he was part of units transporting items to other stations in the Middle East, and soon he was venturing into uncertain areas as part of a military convoy.

&uot;When you got on the road, you had to be careful,&uot; Gilmore said. &uot;That’s when they’d start bombing the convoy. But we didn’t have an incident. Either it happened before we’d go through or right after.&uot;

Getting the good news

Most of the assignments for Gilmore lasted two days, and the convoy was under strict orders not to travel at night for safety reasons.

The people there had mixed feelings about the presence of American soldiers. In one area soldiers would find many people supporting Americans, and 20 miles later others would throw rocks at American military vehicles.

&uot;One thing about them &045; they wanted that U.S. dollar,&uot; Gilmore said. &uot;They wanted to sell you something they thought you would want to buy. I felt pretty bad for the children. They looked like they didn’t have enough food to eat. They were always begging for food and begging for water.&uot;

It happened so often with the convoy, he said, everyone had to make sure children didn’t get too close to the vehicles to make sure they didn’t get run over. And other times soldiers had to be careful and make sure it wasn’t a trap to harm Americans.

The uneasiest moment Gilmore said he experienced came when the convoy was moving through Baghdad and got stuck in a traffic jam when the highway went to six lanes. Fortunately for them, military police were on the scene and guided the convoy through.

&uot;We tried to get on the side of the road, but there was traffic all around,&uot; Gilmore said. &uot;If anything were to happen, this would be the day. Thank God we had a convoy ahead of us and MPs directing traffic for us. That was the only time I really experienced something that was really spooky to an extent.&uot;

All the while Sharon waited for his phone calls, which came twice a day later in the deployment once Gilmore got his personal cell phone. Often times he couldn’t tell her the nature of an assignment for safety reasons, leaving her to wonder what her husband was doing.

&uot;At first it was a very long time before I would hear from him,&uot; she said. &uot;When I did, I was so glad to finally hear from him. That was really trying when you can’t hear at all. I’d go weeks before hearing anything.&uot;

Then he started calling and finally broke the news she’d been waiting on since he left &045; there may be a slight chance that he was on his way home. Gilmore didn’t get his hopes up &045; things change so often in the military &045; but kept the faith.

Then he noticed his unit on the list to be sent home, but he still didn’t get too excited. You just never really know.

&uot;We got all our gear, and they came and picked it up,&uot; he said. &uot;The buses showed up, the plane showed up, we boarded the plane and we started flying. I didn’t think they’d stop a plane and come back.&uot;

Gilmore was on his way home.

The plane stopped in Spain to for fuel, stopped again in Ireland and arrived in the United States in Bangor, Maine. It was there Gilmore remembered what he always told his players about going to church when he stepped on American soil that day.

Aside from the warm welcome from veterans there and his call home to Sharon and the thought of coaching basketball again, he realized he was right all along.

&uot;Man, it felt wonderful,&uot; Gilmore said. &uot;If was one of those feelings, you know, where you know there is a God. It was Him that kept my family together and made them stronger. Through that deployment, it made us stronger.&uot;