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LAS CRUCES - After a year in Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Arthur Ambriz has plenty of experience keeping his sprits up overseas, thousands of miles from his wife's red enchiladas.
"I'll keep in touch a lot," said the husband and father of three Saturday. "I'll try and call every chance. And write ... I try to stay busy. You take a lot of pictures of your family. I try to write them every chance I get"
Ambriz and 180 soldiers with the New Mexico National Guard's 1st Battalion, 200th Infantry, headed soon to Kosovo for a yearlong peacekeeping deployment, were honored Saturday with a traditional "yellow ribbon" send-off ceremony early Saturday afternoon at the Las Cruces Convention Center. A young pine was tied with a bright yellow ribbon, and will be planted at the National Guard armory just west of Las Cruces, to await the safe return of the 1st Battalion.
One of those waiting will be Anissa Ambriz, 17, who stood by her dad, a brave smile on her face, at Saturday's ceremony, which drew about 500 people.
"I'm feeling really sad," she said. "He's going to be gone for so long."
But the sadness was also accompanied by the knowledge that she could hold her head up high at his mission.
"I'm very proud of him," she said. "Like (I can say to the world), 'My dad's fighting for our country. What are you doing?'"
Gov. Susana Martinez attended Saturday's ceremony, the first New Mexico governor to attend a yellow ribbon send-off ceremony in-person in Las Cruces in recent
"It's a sad day, but it's a day to honor the men and women who serve and the families who serve with them," she said. "I strongly support those who stay at home as well as those who go to serve."
Martinez and her husband, former Do-a Ana County Undersheriff Chuck Franco, have some recent and personal knowledge of that experience: Franco's son, Carlo, recently returned from a tour overseas as a Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman with the Navy, which meant six-week gaps in between communications at times.
First Sgt. Santiago Delgado, who heads the battalion and just returned from Kosovo in July, said the soldiers' mission would be to provide peacekeeping, emergency response, road-building and infrastructure work to communities as they got their economies back to working order in a post-war world.
He did acknowledge that some of it would be difficult: no green chile cheeseburgers, no homemade tortillas. But the work, he said, is worth it.
"The roads, buildings, a lot was bombed," Delgado said. He added: "Serbians and Albanians are trying to be peaceful. And that's what we want to happen."
Mayor Ken Miyagishima, who also spoke at Saturday's ceremony, said the next year would be difficult for Las Cruces soldiers and their families, but that they left a city with a great appreciation for each of their contributions.
"Thank you for being able to uproot your families and your jobs and leave when the commander-in-chief calls," Miyagishima said. "And I know there's a lot of things that have to be taken care of when you leave. I know when I get away for three or four days, oh man, I have so many things I have to take care of. I can't imagine what it's like to be gone for a whole year - not only the strain on families and households, but everything. But their business involves them being in harm's way. And we can't thank them enough."
National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Jamison Herrera said the 450 or so soldiers to be sent to Kosovo is an increase from the number of New Mexico National Guardsmen that have gone on deployment before. National Guard soldiers continue to be deployed to Kosovo, as peacekeeping forces through NATO.
Statewide, about 450 state National Guard members will be deployed, representing the 111th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, in Rio Rancho; the 126th Military Police Co., from Albuquerque; the 200th Public Affairs Detachment, in Santa Fe; the 717th Brigade Support Battalion in Roswell, and the 1-200th battalion. The New Mexico National Guard will operate the headquarters for Multinational Battle Group East and conduct operations for KFOR 14, a multinational peace support operation in Kosovo.
In recent years the New Mexico National Guard has deployed to Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba. There are also currently 82 Guardsmen deployed to the Southwest Border Mission.
Ashley Meeks can be reached at (575) 541-5462
