Five soldiers from central Wisconsin are home after serving part of the summer in Africa. The 1158th Transportation Company hauled tanks and tractors for military training in Morocco.
"When we're doing stay-at-home missions we're on roads with American traffic versus the traffic here which is a lot different," said Sgt. Korin Saal from the base just a couple weeks ago. "They're crazy drivers here."
Saal us a national guard truck operator from Schofield who spent three weeks in the Moroccan Sahara Desert. She's not only responsible for driving her vehicle, but keeping it running.
"They're expensive, huge, have lots of parts, lots of pieces to them," said Saal. "I'm in charge of that truck. I'm in charge of making sure it gets from point a to point b in one piece safely."
Back home it's her family hoping she comes back in one piece and safely. After a deployment to Iraw in 2006, her parents say any time spent overseas is stressful.
"We're very nervous, we're thinking of her every day and wondering if she is ok," said Carol Saal. "We could send her texts so we would send her texts every day, every 5 minutes somebody was texting her to let her know that we were thinking of her."
"My mom just had heart surgery so it has kind of been crazy health-wise," said Korin. "I always try to get some contact home as much as possible just to see how they're doing."
"I was watching the History Channel and they were talking about the most dangerous roads in the world," said her father Irv Saal recallin Korin's time in Iraq. "Knowing that my daughter is driving from the Iraqui airport to Baghdad every day and that was listed as one of the most dangerous roads to drive on in the world, that didn't leave me any piece of mind."
This summer Korin Saal got back in time for Father's Day, and for a different type of labor.
"I went and had her get a 50 lbs. bag of dog food for him (Lucky the dog) and it's nice when I can say I'll send the Sergeant in to go get the dog food. She's got a way stronger back than me."
The national guard keeps her a weekend a month and a few weeks in the summer. It's a dirty job, but somebody looks forward to doing it.
"I love this," saud Korin. "Getting all dirty and greasy and gross and tom-boyish and then to come back here and get all prim and proper."
In all, about 900 military members will train in Morocco this summer.
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