178th Battalion Receives Deployment Sendoff

Hundreds of people turned out at the Winthrop Coliseum Sunday to say goodbye to 160 members of the Army National Guard’s 178th Combat Engineers Battalion based in Rock Hill.

The soldiers are headed for a deployment in Afghanistan.  Colonel Van McCarty, Brigade Commander with the 59th Troop Command, told the soldiers that deployment is a marathon and not a sprint.

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Lieutenant Colonel Corol Dobson, the 178th Company Commander, says the soldiers who are part of this deployment are on what he calls his “A” team.

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U.S. Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) wished them well.

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South Carolina Adjutant General Robert Livingston Junior says those who have already deployed from the U-S have taken away the generation capability of those who would do us harm.

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The 178th is based in Rock Hill, and its units come from Chester, Clover, Fort Mill, Lancaster and Rock Hill.