BRUNSWICK — Air Force Reservist Davielle Rodgers stood in line at a Portland bus station Saturday, one hand combing the back of her daughter’s head.

“This is when it gets the toughest” Rodgers’ mother, Patty Sparks, said. “Especially for the little one.”

Moments later, mothers and daughters would say goodbye again.

It’s Rodgers’ fourth overseas deployment. This time, she’s headed to Afghanistan.

She will be there six months, replacing Marines and Army soldiers she said have been in Afghanistan for one-and-ahalf to two years.

That thought is sobering and, in some ways, comforting.

“If I can be there for six months so that it gives them six months with their families — I want to do that,” Rodgers said, days before she would leave her job, her family and her apartment. “I would want someone to do that for me.”

Saturday, that thought was not the first thing on her mind after saying goodbye to her mother and 10-year-old daughter, Gabrielle Sparks.

“It’s supposed to get easier,” Rodgers said, striking a tear from her cheek, “but it doesn’t.”

What to expect

Rodgers will turn 31 on Monday, the day she sets foot in Afghanistan.

It’s her first deployment to Afghanistan. However, past deployments to Iraq provide some idea of what to expect, like sunlight — bright sunlight.

“You are completely blinded by how the sun hits the sand,” Rodgers said. “People think it’s bad here.”

The bags she packed days before leaving were a small lesson on how to survive in that desert environment.

Rodgers pointed out a package of plain black sheets on the coffee table of her Page Street apartment, next to the uniform her 13-year-old cat, Binx, would choose to rest on.

“I take sheets ahead of time,” Rodgers said. “If you think of how many people have actually slept on a set of sheets there, it’s ridiculous.”

The sheets also serve another practical purpose, “depending on whether you get the day shift or a night shift,” Rodgers said.

Tucking the flat sheet under the mattress of the top bunk “creates a kind of canopy and blackout” that makes it easier to sleep, according to Rodgers.

Her socks, the plastic boxes containing more than a week’s worth of toiletries, her boots and two pairs of sunglasses were among the array of things she’s learned to bring.

“But as much as I am prepared equipment wise,” Rodgers said, “this one’s a little harder mentally.”

Settled in

Rodgers likes civilian life. Working at Joshua’s Tavern, the My Tie Lounge, and starting on an associate’s degree in business and accounting at Southern New Hampshire University’s Brunswick campus was gaining a rhythm.

After the last semester, she made the dean’s list.

“I’ve settled into this way of life where I go to work every day, come home, go to school, cook dinner with my daughter,” Rodgers said.

Working during the day with school at night and monthly training commitments at her home base in Massachusetts was sometimes trying, but Rodgers said that life was fitting well.

“It’s a little harder to step away from something you enjoy constantly,” Rodgers said.

But that’s the nature of being in the Reserves.

“They technically only have to give me 28 hours notice,” Rodgers said. “I always have to be prepared and ready to go.”

That includes preparing a will and delegating power of attorney.

“Being a single mom and having a daughter, I have to make sure that I take extra steps,” Rodgers said.

In the case of such a rapid deployment, Rodgers keeps a 72-hour bag ready, with supplies that could carry her through three full days.

For this deployment, she had just more than a month to prepare. Her employers and family, she said, have been supportive, though she’s faced challenges in the past.

Returning from one previous deployment, Rodgers said, she went without steady work for nearly six months, which she attributed to a tough economy.

This time, Rodgers said, things are looking up. After her deployment she plans to return to work at Joshua’s, where she left a patch with her old rank and symbol.

“I told them that I have to come back now for that patch,” Rodgers said.

At My Tie, Rodgers said, a co-worker handed her a silver dollar with specific instructions.

“‘You have to bring this back and put this in my hand,’ he told me,” Rodgers said. “It’s things like that that let me know that people here are rooting for me to come home, so that makes it a little easier.”

Pride

On this deployment, Rodgers will wear a set of stripes for her promotion from the pay grade of E-5 to E-6.

“E-6 is a huge responsibility,” Rodgers said. “You get more into knowing your job, and people go to you for advice.”

Rodgers is proud of that progress, and she plans to keep moving up the ladder.

In February, she signed on for another six years. At the end of that time, Rodgers said, she’ll have more than 14 years of military service under her belt. And she plans on staying for yet another six.

“I plan on doing my 20,” Rodgers said.

It’s a change from years ago. Rodgers said she never saw herself joining the military, but then something changed.

“I grew up,” Rodgers said. “I wanted to do something better for myself and wanted to have an education and a career and to have my daughter look up to me someday.”

When she puts on that uniform, Rodgers said, she takes on a new personality.

“I am very honored to wear that uniform,” Rodgers said.

Not everyone in her group of family or friends may agree politically with U.S. military action abroad — and she keeps her own views close to the vest — but Rodgers said her family members keep their political views at bay and focus on supporting her.

“(My mother) doesn’t always agree with what I’m doing, but she supports me and that’s all I ever asked for from anybody,” Rodgers said.

And the same goes for her two older siblings, she said.

In part, Rodgers said, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, motivated her to join the military.

Since, she’s found pride in that commitment and in a connection with her family’s past — to a grandfather who served in the Army during World War II.

“I take a lot of pride in having that family background,” Rodgers said.

She hopes that will carry on.

“I look back on this as doing something that my daughter can be proud of,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers said that as the years pass, the 10-year-old is starting to better understand everything involved in her mother’s deployment.

For the next six months, Rodgers’ mother and aunts will look after her daughter.

“It’s harder on her and it’s harder on my family,” Rodgers said.

But Rodgers said she’s making progress toward what she wanted and what she committed to when she signed up.

“I tell myself that ‘the reason you signed on the dotted line were because of education and a better life and job skills and just wanting to be able to serve,’” Rodgers said. “It took me a long time to decide whether I wanted to go in this direction or not, but I’m glad that I did.”

A long summer

This deployment is the first summer Rodgers will miss in Maine.

“I don’t mind missing a Maine winter,” Rodgers said, “but Maine summers are just amazing.”

While the flora recovers through the spring and thrives through the summer in Vacationland, Rodgers expects temperatures to reach 110 degrees in Afghanistan.

“It’s just a dry heat,” Rodgers said, “but it can take from two to three weeks to adjust.”

In Iraq, she said, it took her three weeks.

She’s also found boots she can stand for the occasional 18-hour shift, though there are still requirements on base she’s not excited about.

“We have to keep our sleeves down,” despite the heat, Rodgers said.

“It took a long time for me to adjust the first time in Iraq,” Rodgers said. “You have to keep hydrated all the time, but you also have to be really careful about the water over there.”

In that environment, she tries to keep distractions to a minimum, but it’s hard not to grow homesick and to miss even the smallest things about her life back in Brunswick.

On her first deployment, Rodgers said, hearing her daughter over the phone was difficult.

“I would miss her horribly,” Rodgers said. “And (I would miss) family and friends — and simple things like a hot shower, which everyone takes for granted here.”

But she has to put in long hours, weather and emotional difficulty aside.

“When you feel like you don’t want to get out of bed,” Rodgers said. “We don’t get to do that because people are counting on you.”

dfishell@timesrecord.com