BELTON, Texas - As a career Soldier, Col. Tobin Green, commander of 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, has had to spend a lot of his time away from his family due to training or deployed.
Birthdays, holidays, funerals ... and during his last deployment to Iraq, his daughter's high school graduation.
Courteney Green, who is a U.S. Military Academy sophomore, graduated from Killeen High School in 2007. Her father, then a lieutenant colonel and who served as the 1st Cav. Div.'s Operations officer, had to watch his daughter walk across the stage during graduation from a video teleconference monitor while deployed to Iraq.
Though it wasn't easy to be away from his children's major events such as a graduation, Susan Green, his wife, said he is really with them ... just from a far away land.
VTC technology allowed Tobin, of Sioux Falls, S.D., and more than 50 other Soldiers watch their children graduate during 1st Cav. Div.'s last Iraq deployment; however, it is a cooperative effort between the school districts and the division's communications Soldiers.
So, as 1st Cav. Div. Soldiers are deployed again through graduation season, more than 30 reps from four different independent school districts throughout Central Texas got together with the 1st Cav. Div. Rear Detachment command, March 31, at the Bell County Expo Center in Belton, Texas, to discuss plans for the upcoming graduation ceremonies this summer.
"This is an important session to tie up any loose ends," said Tal Anderson, Superintendent's Office's executive officer in the Killeen Independent School District. "We have all the key players from the different schools and especially the Army."
Similar to 1st Cav. Div.'s last deployment, there will be approximately 50 students graduating this year at the Expo Center. For the division's Communications Soldiers, that'll mean a lot of coordination between here and Communications Soldiers deployed to bring the graduations to about 15 different bases throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea via VTC featuring seniors from Belton, Temple, Killeen, Harker Heights and Copperas Cove.
"This is so important because it's all about readiness and taking care of the Soldiers," said Maj. James Clarke, of Albany, Ga., who works in the division's Operations office. "We owe it to our Soldiers to do everything possible to bring normalcy to what they would have back home."
The Expo Center has private rooms set up with a VTC for each of the children to be able to see and speak to their deployed parent(s).
Like his father and sister, Conner Green, a Killeen HS senior, received an appointment to USMA, and like his sister, due to a deployment, his father will miss his high school graduation in June.
"It is kind of sad to know that he won't be there, but I am much happier that he is doing his job in Iraq," Conner said. "Him watching my graduation from Iraq means a lot to me, and it says a lot about the efforts of the U.S. Army, KISD and other schools to make it easier on military 'brats.' It won't be quite the same as having him there physically, but I know that the Army, my school, and my father do the best that they can do, and that is what matters most."
Tobin, was able to visit his daughter during her reception day as a freshmen while on leave and for Conner, his plans are to visit him after his march back from Camp Buckner, similar to a cadet's basic training.
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