Local & State Headlines

MCLB team heads to Iraq

• A civilian maintenance team assembled at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany leaves for Iraq.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — Despite the efforts of Katie Benjamin, 3, six civilian workers departed Maintenance Center Albany for Iraq Tuesday, to service Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, for 6-12 months.

“This is the moment we dread,” said Lois Lake, grandmother of Leesburg girls Katie and Heather, 7, who clung to their father, Clayton Benjamin, and cried.

Katie was intent on boarding the van where the six men and their belongings, “packed like sardines,” were bound for the Atlanta airport Tuesday afternoon, Lake said.

It was the third trip for Benjamin, Steven Ray of Warwick and Eli Hayek of Leesburg, all welders, with government contractor Defense Support Services to Iraq.

“What he does, it’s important,” said Shiloh Benjamin, the wife of Clayton Benjamin. “We’re very proud of him.”

While the goodbyes don’t get any easier, her older daughter will adjust when school starts back, Benjamin said.

“She has other friends whose fathers are in the military,” Benjamin said.

Hayek’s mother, Lorraine Smallwood, came to see her 22-year-old son off.

While other young adults joined the armed forces, her son works for a contractor, Smallwood said.

“This is his contribution to America,” she said.

Hayek said the work was “exciting.”

“You get used to the conditions,” and the few opportunities for fun or sightseeing, he said.

“You ride around in humvees and stuff; there are really no sights. It’s mostly desert,” Hayek said.

“It looks good on a resume,” he said.

“It’ll be a breeze,” Ray said at the start of his third deployment. “We know the ropes and we know what to do.”

In all, four welders with Defense Support Services left Tuesday for a six-month tour, and two mechanics from Maintenance Center Albany started a tour of approximately 360 days, said James Nash, Operations Manager with the trades department at MCA.

The Marine Corps has approximately 30 civilian personnel in Iraq now servicing MRAPs, including 24 from Albany, but 16 are about to return, Nash said.

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