Shipping out

It means the army reservist made it back safely after a stint in 2003 with the 623rd Transportation Company, based out of Fort Dix, N.J.
This time Sullivan, a 34-year-old husband and father from Brooklyn, is headed out with the 773rd Transportation Company out of Fort Totten, a base situated on the Long Island Sound in a mainly residential section of Northeast Queens.
His first sergeant, Vincent Mannion also knows the feeling well.
The Roscommon-reared Mannion, who is 39, is gearing up for his third mission as an army reserve soldier.
With the war in Iraq suffering from deadly insurgent attacks, public protests and government infighting, the 773rd’s assignment is flying in the face of a wholly unpopular war.
Their job as a transport company to haul fuel oil only proves the point. Convoy operations are frequent targets for attack, though if Sullivan and Mannion have anything to do with it, they will be leading a thoroughly well-trained company.
The 773rd will head off to Camp Atterbury, just south of Indianapolis in Indiana for two months of training before going on to their assignment somewhere “in Northern Iraq,” which as specific as Sullivan could get. They are scheduled to be there for a year.
“Many volunteers had the choice,” Sullivan pointed out, and added that there was a lot of “you go, I go” attitude.
“There’s been a lot of ‘be carefuls’,” said Mannion, the senior enlisted man in the company.
Mainly used as an EMS training facility for the FDNY, it is also home to the 77th Army Reserve Command — one of the nation’s largest. The 773rd held their mobilization ceremony last Sunday in the warm confines of Kaine Hall.
The normally picturesque grounds of Fort Totten were coated from a freak overnight ice storm and bone-chilling temperatures made all involved glad to be gathered into the simple cinderblock room used that day to hold the soldiers, along with their friends and families, for a proper sendoff.
Of the 170 members of the 773rd, 15 are women, and the bulk of the unit is from New York City, though some are from Long Island, New Jersey or upstate. A quick scan of the group showed that it is made up of either middle-aged members or young ones, some clearly still in their teens.
Family ties
First Sgt. Mannion was among them. Though he grew up in Fairymount, Co. Roscommon, he was actually born in the U.S., making his military career all the more plausible. Born just outside Boston, Mass., Mannion returned to Ireland as a child with his mother and three siblings.
The U.S. would pull the Mannion family once more, as Vincent followed in the steps of his older brother and sister, who joined the U.S. Navy. He arrived for duty in 1983 at age 17 and has been here ever since.
It was his post-naval time in Boston where he met his wife Brenda, who was also born in the U.S. yet grew up in Renmore, Galway.
The two have four children: Ryan, 13, Dylan, 10, Tara, 8, and Gavin, 6, and live in Croton-on-Hudson in Upstate New York.
Goodbyes
“It can get emotional,” Mannion admitted, though hardly donning anything less than a broad smile himself as his and other families ran about after the ceremony.
But it only took one look at a teary woman, slumped against a wall, watching Sgt. Dave Hoffman lift a giggling Tara Mannion over his head, to know that the moment would be short-lived.
Being away over a year will take its toll on the family, Mannion admitted.
“It’s hardest on them, of course,” he said.
Brenda Mannion echoed her husband’s sentiments.
“It never gets easier,” she said. “I don’t want to say it does because it doesn’t.
“As they get older, they’re more aware,” she added, as her two oldest wandered about.
Brenda Mannion said that they are close with other military families, and “it’s hard for other people to know what its like.”
Also there were Vincent Mannion’s mother, Frances Mannion, moved back to the Boston area once again, and Brenda’s mother Mary Ward, who lives in Woodside but is also from Galway. Even Vincent’s sister Colette was there with her daughter Amanda.
“It does get harder,” admitted Ward, each time Mannion is deployed.
Repeat performances
Alas, it is not 1st Sgt. Mannion’s first time in the Middle East.
He was on the ground in Iraq two days after the ground war started in 2003.
“It was a tough deployment,” he said, as there wasn’t “a lot of creature comforts in place.”
He recalled access to phones and the Internet being strained, but expects things to be better this time around.
“It should be a little better,” he said, “but there’s always the unknown.”
Mannion knew for a couple of months that the 773rd would get the call to deploy, and noted that a few reserve soldiers are going for the return trip as well.
He anticipates his daily life will involve “putting out a lot of fires,” and he will be busy up until then getting his unit ready.
“It’s my job to keep them motivated and focused,” he said.
Mannion, who first joined the army reserve in September 1989, is a member of the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit, specifically Squad 4.
“It’s exciting,” he laughed. “Midnights in the Bronx, what more can you say?”
That said, he has been through a lot with the military. He was deployed during the first Gulf war in 1991.
“I never imagined I would be going to that part of the world again said Mannion. “And I don’t care, as long as I get back.
“This country’s been good to me,” he added. “I’ll never turn my back.”