AUBURN - A support group is asking for a small token of appreciation for a group of soldiers who gave up their safety and time with their loved onesfor more than a year.

Danielle Barber, chairwoman of Family Readiness Group, wants to welcome an Auburn Army National Guard unit back from Iraq with a wall of the armory overloaded with letters, notes, photos, drawings, cards and flags. The readiness group is a support component for the unit.

“So that when they see it, they'll say ‘We did a good thing,'” she said.

While there's not a date set, they are hoping to have them home on Oct. 27, which marks one year from when the guardsmen left. The unit will be home by the latest in early November, if everything goes according to plan. While they estimate they will see their family members soon, people are slow to breathe a sign of relief. They are working up until the day they leave, Barber said, wearing a camouflage “Support Our Troops” rubber bracelet on her right arm.

“You hear from the community they support the guys but they need to show it,” Barber said. Her husband, Spc. Robert Barber, is one of the 32 soldiers from Auburn.

The unit left for training in Aug. 7, 2006, in Fort Dix Army Base in New Jersey. On Oct. 27, 2006, they left for Iraq. The order said they would remain there until February.

“It was scary... It was hard,” she said,

The 222nd Military Police Unit consists of nearly 70 people, with 32 soldiers from Auburn and the rest from Hornell, in Steuben County. The Fort Dix training ground was built specifically to train soldiers for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

But the wives and girlfriends left behind don't go through any training on how to become both mother and father. Parents don't prepare to learn how to quell the endless worry.

“In the beginning it was like 'I can never make it.' Now it's 'When is it going to be over,'” Barber said.

Suddenly everyday questions such as 'How was your day' became heartfelt questions with intense answers. One man from the unit called his wife and told her to look on Yahoo News to see the devastation in a place he had just left.

Barber and the other family members, including parents, aunts, girlfriends and wives, want the community to thank them for their sacrifice.

She was upset by the lack of reception she received from schools, but said her children's teachers were wonderful. The Barber's daughter's kindergarten teacher made a flag out of their hand prints and wrote letters at Casey Park Elementary.

She attributes some of the apathy she's encountered to the fact that this generation hasn't had to give up anything, unlike the rationing that accompanied World War II. No one gives anything up besides the military and their families. People who don't know anyone there don't understand the hardship both soldiers and their families face.

“It doesn't tough them. It's doesn't hit home,” Barber said.

She's upset that people ask them to justify what they are doing in Iraq, or concentrating on the negative accounts. They are putting up cell towers, providing families with items, building schools and creating jobs, she said.

The soldiers didn't make the choice to go there, they are just doing their jobs, she said.

Some organizations have been welcoming, such as the Veterans of Foreign War, but hopes the community in general will come through for the members of the 222nd.

“Will (the mayor) have a parade for the soldiers like he did for the football team?” Barber asked.

Staff writer Jessica Soule can be reached at 253-5311, ext. 267 or jessica.soule@lee.net