Public send-off planned for reservists

GAINESVILLE - More than a hundred members of a Gainesville-based Army Reserve unit leave Wednesday for eventual deployment to Afghanistan. And, plans are in the works for a send-off motorcade and ceremony for them on Tuesday.

One of the organizers, Deb Gregson, said the motorcade will leave the Army Reserve Center on Shallowford Road at 2:30 p.m. and head to Riverside Military Academy for a special ceremony at 3:30 p.m. for the 802nd Ordnance Company.

Gregson and others are hoping for a big turnout from the community along the motorcade route and at Riverside.

"We would love [to have] people, waving flags, yellow ribbons...wishing [them] well," she said, "to show support for the soldiers and their families, especially at this time of the year. They are going to be away from home at both Thanksgiving and Christmas."

The 802nd's last deployment to a war zone was in early 2003 in Kuwait in support of the war in Iraq. The soldiers returned home in February 2004 to a rousing downtown welcome, which included a ceremony at the Georgia Mountains Center.

Gregson said plans call for Tuesday's motorcade to follow this route between the Army Reserve Center on Shallowford Road and Riverside:

Leaving Shallowford Rd. at 2:30pm

Right onto Pearl Nix Parkway

Left onto Jesse Jewell Parkway

Left onto E.E. Butler Parkway

Right Merge onto 129 (Cleveland Highway)

Left onto Riverside Dr.

Left into Riverside Military Academy