900 Marines head to Iraq

Precious moment: Cpl. Jeremy Collins holds twin son Gavin while his wife, Elizabeth, holds sibling Hayden. Collins said goodbye to his family at Camp Lejeune on Thursday before deploying for a seven months of duty in Iraq.

Marine Corps Cpl. Jeremy Collins is going to have a hard slog through his deployment to Iraq, but his wife Elizabeth may have a more critical assignment.

She’s the one who has to take care of their six-week-old identical twins, Gavin and Hayden, while Collins is off fighting the good fight in al Anbar province for seven months.

Collins, who deployed Wednesday from Camp Lejeune with the rest of his unit, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, said he was happy he got to witness the birth of his sons before he departed, yet it made the yearning to stay home stronger. He spent Wednesday afternoon outside Goettge Memo-rial Field House aboard Camp Lejeune holding his sons as he waited for the buses to take them to the airport.

“I’m not as excited to go,” he said.

Read the rest at the Daily News

Note: Due to problems with blogger we were unable to post news of deployments and returns for the last 10 days. This post is part of the update from that period.