SANFORD — By now, Sgt. Tyson Trepanier will have hugged his children and said his good-byes. He is on his way to Fort Hood, Texas, the first leg of a journey that will take him to Afghanistan for a year’s deployment with the 1136th Transportation Company of the Maine Army National Guard.

He and his wife, Sgt. Shannon Trepanier, also a member of the unit, have  planned ahead, tied up loose ends, preparing for a year away from home.

Trepanier, part of the advance team for the 175-member 1136th Transportation Company, was scheduled to board an aircraft for Texas this morning. The remainder of the team, including Shannon, will leave for Fort Hood this weekend, after a send-off ceremony Saturday in Orono.

The couple are among about 50 members of the Sanford detachment. Another  50 hail from the Calais area, and the remaining 75 are attached to the Bangor headquarters of the company.

After a month or so at Fort Hood, the company’s next stop will be Afghanistan.

They’ll be gone for a year and they’ll be in harm’s way.

But the Trepaniers, like the others, have made a commitment and it’s one they intend to keep, even though they know the next year won’t be easy for them or for those left on the homefront. But the couple has tried to make their deployment as seamless as possible for the family left behind.

At home will be the couple’s four children, ages 10 to three, being cared for by Shannon’s brother and sister-in-law, who have three children of their own. The Trepaniers bought a house in town a couple of months ago, and anticipating the deployment, Shannon’s brother and his wife and their children moved in with them at about the same time.

“It has been a decent transition and they raise their kids the same way we do,” said Tyson Trepanier.

The couple has a blended family ”“ each brought a child to the union and they have two little ones together. The older two have a concept of what deployment means, since they’re used to their parents being away for training, Shannon said, and the younger ones aren’t yet old enough to comprehend the passage of time.

Both she and Tyson bought laptop computers equipped with cameras so they can use services like Skype to see and converse with their children back home. The modern technology allows real-time video and conversation with family members that wasn’t available 20 years ago.

“It eases a lot of the family stresses,” said Shannon.

The unit learned they’d be deployed about a year ago.

This time, however, there won’t be any convoys rolling down Main Street like there was back in 2003 when the unit was sent to Kuwait. The mission is different this time, and the equipment they’ll be using is already in place. Plus, they’re leaving from Bangor, not Sanford.

It is all a bit different than it was then, when Shannon stood with her brothers and her mother on a Sanford street corner, watching as the heavy convoy of military vehicles rolled out of town. Her father, Damon Lehnig, was among the members of the 1136th Transportation Unit who deployed to Kuwait that year.

After training for a month or more at Fort Hood, the unit will be on duty in Afghanistan, providing security at bases and for convoys carrying logistical supplies and fuel, said their commander, Capt. Peter Carter of Belfast. He said the company is expected to be stationed “in and around Kabul.”

Carter, speaking in a telephone interview on a day off with his wife before his departure Sunday with the rest, said the advance notice of deployments gives members time to prepare.

“A lot of my soldiers took time off from work during school vacation to take trips with their kids,” he said.  

The decision for the Trepaniers to deploy at the same time was made after considering all of their options, they said in an interview at the Sanford Armory  Wednesday. Both Tyson and Shannon have been in the military for some time. She spent two years on active duty with the U.S. Army before joining the National Guard and Tyson knows first-hand what is it like to be deployed, as he was with the Guard’s 133rd Engineering Battalion in Iraq in 2004.

Both say life has been a little nerve-wracking in the past few days, making sure everything is ready, and every possible eventuality at home has been thought of and a plan devised.

Shannon, a self-described “Army brat” is used to military life. Her Dad is a veteran and three of her four brothers are serving.

“I joined the Army because I wanted to see the world,” she said, but left after a two-year hitch. “I didn’t want to be on active duty when I had my daughter,” she said. “But I missed it and joined the guard ”“ the best of both worlds.”

Tyson, a carpenter by trade, had always wanted to serve in the military but, like Shannon, didn’t want to be in the regular Army with a child, so he too chose the  Guard. The couple married in 2007.

“Back as far as I can remember my goal was to be a soldier,” said Tyson, who re-enlisted while he was still in Iraq in 2004.

In these precious few days before they leave, they’ve been spending lots of time with the children. Shannon, who works in medical billing and coding for Goodall Hospital, took some time off, spending a day with each child to do whatever the youngster wanted.

“My son wanted to play video games all day so that’s what we did,” she said. A daughter opted for a manicure and other “girly” adventures.

Being in the guard, they both knew that chances were, the call for deployment would come, sooner or later.

Back in the early days of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, there was little time to ready for a deployment.

“It was a quick out the door. Sometimes, having a year is worse, mentally and family-wise. There’s pros and cons to both ways,” said Shannon.

There were three choices ”“ one of them could have been deployed one year and the other the next; one could leave the Guard; or they could both go at the same time and be home a year later.

They chose to go together, and they know they are leaving their children in good hands.

“There’s been a lot of time to prepare and plan,” said Tyson. “We knew we would probably be going. It was just a matter of when.”

— Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 or twells@journaltribune.com.