Carey Baeumel took a leap of faith and enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves in her sophomore year of college, a decision which she said changed her life and allowed her to grow into the person that she is today.
Baeumel, who now works for the Northeast Georgia Health System Foundation in Gainesville, spent eight years in the Army throughout the 2000s, with about three and a half of those years on active duty.
Throughout her time as part of the 366th Chemical Company out of Fort Stewart, Georgia, Baeumel trained for the possibility of chemical or biological warfare. Baeumel’s company was equipped to set up decontamination sites for civilians in a scenario where chemical weapons were used in warfare.
Baeumel said the importance of her role significantly increased directly following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“At that particular time … I don’t know if everyone remembers, but there were anthrax scares,” Baeumel said. “They were thinking that there was going to be some sort of biological attack, so they upped the training for us for that.”
Eventually, Baeumel was placed on active duty and was deployed to Iraq for 18 months during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
“We left in April of 2003, and flew over to Kuwait, thinking that we were going to come back within six months,” Baeumel said. “Six months ended up being extended to 10 months … and then 10 months became 12 months, and then 12 months turned into 18 months.”
In the early days of Baeumel’s time in Iraq, her company’s main objective was to prepare for the potential of biological or chemical warfare, as they had trained for prior to their deployment. However, she said it eventually became clear that these methods of warfare were unlikely to be used, so she and her fellow soldiers began working as military police with a local government contractor.
“[We] basically did the main supply route from southern Iraq all the way up to the northern part of Iraq, we did the convoy security for them,” Baeumel said.
Baeumel said one of the most memorable moments from her deployment came about on Dec. 13, 2003. On that day at about 8:30 p.m. local time in Iraq, a man who the military had labeled “High Value Target Number One,” was captured as part of Operation Red Dawn.
“We happened to be in Iraq at the time that they were able to capture Saddam Hussein,” Baeumel said. “We were actually at what was called Camp Victory in Baghdad … at that time there was a lot of celebration when they heard that they had found Saddam … it was exciting.”
While Baeumel said there were indeed happy moments and moments of accomplishment, she certainly had her fair share of struggles while away from home on her deployment. For example, Baeumel said she can still remember how she felt when she was told her deployment was going to be extended past 12 months.
“We flew back from Iraq, we flew to Kuwait, and we had already called and talked to family, letting them know we were coming home … we were just waiting on our flight, basically,” Baeumel said. “They told us that we had been extended, and so we got back on helicopters, chinooks actually, and went back up into Iraq. That to me was the hardest thing, and not necessarily for me, of having to stay, but for having to make that phone call and let my parents and let my husband … know that we weren’t coming home.”
Baeumel said she and her husband had just gotten married less than a year before her deployment.
Even after going through some difficult moments, Baeumel said her eight years in the Army were life-changing and she would not change a thing.
“I don’t know that I would be the person that I am today if I had not experienced that,” Baeumel said. “Three of those eight years were extremely difficult, but the maturity and the grace and the discipline that you learn from that, it just means the world to me.”
AccessWDUN thanks Baeumel and every other veteran for their service in honor of Veterans Day 2021.
