A Long Time Gone

The deployment has been hardest on his girlfriend and their two boys, ages 8 and 11. There are days when the kids have trouble in school and she just needs a break. They talk once a week and e-mail, but the boys miss their soldier and he misses them back.

Lately, as the weather has turned, Stusynski has been thinking of baseball: "There's stuff I should be doing with them, and I'm not there."

A Long-Distance Coach

Capt. Chip Rankin leads Bravo Company, but his passions in civilian life run to teaching and coaching. He chaired the science department at Litchfield High School and took the wrestling team to its first state title in 2003. Then came the mobilization, which meant turning over his students and his wrestlers to fill-ins.

Coach and team labored to stay connected, aided by computer and satellite technology unthinkable a war or two ago. Rankin watched two Litchfield matches in a special webcam link, and to fire up the team for the sectional championships, he gave them a long-distance pep talk by telephone. One by one, he told the athletes what they had done to make him proud.

No matter what, things have not been the same, said Jeremy Forster, a senior heavyweight who thrived on the way Rankin drove him, relentlessly, to improve.

"It always felt as though something wasn't there," Forster said. Expecting his coach to return in March, midway through his final season, Forster worked extra hard "to show him how much I'd changed." Then he learned that he would graduate before Rankin made it back.

Late this summer, in the space of a few weeks, Rankin will go from commanding troops in Iraq to teaching high school biology. "It will be a heck of a transition," said Principal Mike Goodrum, who said there is no room for a longer absence.

"We need him back here," Goodrum said. "We can't put someone in for another six months' leave, and because of tight budgets, we can't afford to have two teachers."

Many Shoulders to Lean On

Susan Kay is a deejay at KBRF radio in Fergus Falls. Before Bravo Company deployed, she broadcast from a hotel rooftop and raised $23,000 to help local soldiers and their families. Each soldier received $200 toward a ticket home from Mississippi, where the unit was training. Other money helped pay for care packages and the needs of families at home.

"When you do projects in this town, you don't have to worry, because people will step up and fill in," Kay said. Not long ago, a garage offered free oil changes to the 32 National Guard spouses and a supermarket gave them $10 credits. A meatball supper at Christmas produced $9,000 to send packages to Iraq with such favorites as DVDs and Leatherman tools.

Stories of neighbors pitching in abound: guys installing flooring for a deployed soldier; an Elks Lodge team roofing a soldier's house; friends shoveling the deep Minnesota snow for the wife of an absent Guard member.

In the Minnesota brigade, there have been video marriages for couples who felt they could wait no longer. And last month there was a joint steak fry, held simultaneously in St. Paul and at Tallil Air Base. Sending enough to feed all comers, Twin Cities restaurants shipped 11,550 steaks to soldiers in the base's Camp Adder. With the help of a live satellite hook-up, families and soldiers dined together.

The response has largely been driven by an informal network of family support groups. Often, the most valuable contribution is a timely e-mail, an empathetic voice, a hug. Sometimes, the boost is more practical.

"Our first phone call was from a young lady who had a flat tire who didn't know what to do," said Crookston group leader Jamie Cassavant, grandmother of young Austin and mother of Corey, a member of Echo Company, which supports Bravo. A volunteer bailed the young woman out, just as others have fixed broken wells and finicky appliances.

The Crookston group recorded comments and good wishes during the town's Fourth of July parade, added a musical soundtrack and mailed the CDs to the soldiers. Another time, volunteers painted 60 wooden Christmas trees.

"We've become a family," Cassavant said. "This community has blown us out of the water with their support and their caring."

An Early Homecoming

Some guardsmen, anxious about missing another planting season, recently petitioned to return home early. As Rankin put it: "You don't make any money if you don't get the crops in the ground. Right now we need them, so it's hard to let them go home."

Staff Sgt. Louis Karsnia had another reason to come back: His father, Mike, was in a bind. Advanced cancer was diagnosed in November, and the elder Karsnia put it plainly: "My business would've been down the crapper if he hadn't come home."

Mike Karsnia runs Sure Thing Software, a small firm that produces programs for charities that earn money through gambling. While his son was serving as a cavalry scout, the business managed well enough, but the cancer diagnosis upended the company and the family. Doctors recommended calling Louis home.

"I cried the day I left," said the 27-year-old sergeant, sipping a soda at the Fergus Falls VFW post, where this month he was installed in his father's former job as commander. "It was both tears of joy that I was coming home to see my family and tears of sadness that I was leaving my guys."

The day after arriving home, he reported to work.

A Countdown Is Interrupted

Jennifer Modeen tries to keep her family on steady ground, but there is only so much she can do. She stopped delivery of the Grand Forks Herald because her 10-year-old daughter was reading about how many soldiers were dying. She arranged for a support group called Soldiers' Angels to send 4-year-old Sam a card during a particularly hard stretch.

Last winter, with her husband due home in 100 days, Modeen and the kids put 100 M&Ms in a jar. Every day, they took one out; as the pile got smaller, Staff Sgt. Nathan Modeen was closer to coming home. Sam was growing excited. Then came news of the 125-day extension.

Jennifer Modeen could hardly stand it: "We just threw the M&Ms away."