Florida National Guard:Families must deal with another wave of deployments

Families must deal with another wave of deployments
By By Jan Wesner, Times Staff Writer
In print: Monday, September 8, 2008

CLEARWATER — Look around. Your neighbors are likely firefighters, teachers, doctors, lawyers, parents and grandmas and grandpas. Look closer. Hundreds of people from the Tampa Bay area are also soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and members of the Coast Guard serving in the Florida National Guard or Reserves. About 3,100 Guard and Reserve troops from Florida are deployed to places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. At least 300 are from units based locally. That number is set to go way up next year, when 3,500 members of the 53rd Brigade Combat Team in Tampa will head to Afghanistan.

"We've got another wave ahead of us," said Jon Myatt, spokesman for the Florida Department of Military Affairs.

That's no surprise to Lynda Lipke, whose husband, Chief Petty Officer Chris Lipke, is a reservist assigned to the Coast Guard Port Security Unit 307 in Clearwater.

He returned in April from a six-month deployment to Iraq, only to head out again in June for six months at Guantanamo Bay.
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