Eighteen-month-old Kelson Walker just couldn't keep his excitement to himself upon seeing his father, Staff Sgt. Kenny Walker, standing at attention in the front of the room with his fellow Airmen of the Washington Air National Guard's 116th Air Support Operations Squadron.

The toddler shrieked and pointed proudly several times toward his father during a deployment farewell ceremony March 26 at Camp Murray.

The ceremony would serve as some of the family's final moments together before Walker and his 21 other joint terminal air controllers shipped out for a four-month deployment to Afghanistan.

"Our life continues as though nothing changes without the other half," said Walker's wife, Sarissa, whose four children were wearing buttons with their father's picture on them. "So a household that requires two adults gets one. I get to do it all, and I work full-time."

This will be the Walker family's second deployment. The family of six resides in Grants Pass, Ore., and Sarissa has been through the motions before.

"We get to keep going and do lots of extra curricular activities to keep ourselves busy ... and wait for dad's phone call," she said. "We have lots of pictures, voice recordings a lot of things that we can keep dad's image alive (while he's deployed)."

Pre-deployment training for the 116th began last fall and included events at Fort Irwin, Calif. and Fort Stewart, Ga. Although individual members of the unit have deployed previously, this is the first deployment in the squadron's history of this size.

"We are grateful for your service because in large part ... you are our family, you are our friends, you are our neighbors," Gov. Christine Gregoire told the Airmen. "You are folks that we look to day in and day out to support us in whatever call may happen. You have served your communities and you have served them honorably and we thank you for it.

We pray that each and every one of you will return safely to our communities."

The 116th ASOS is part of the Washington Air National Guard's 194th Regional Support Wing. The Guardsmen of the 116th are Tactical Air Control Party members who deploy into combat with Special Operations teams and serve as close air support experts, advising ground commanders on the use of Air Force assets in combat.  They serve as forward air controllers, winning battles by guiding weapons onto target.

Airmen in the squadron hail from a variety of states, including Utah, Oregon, California, Nevada and Arizona. Tech. Sgt. Jamie Medina, 33, a police officer in Tracy, Calif., flies up to Camp Murray once a month for training. He had nearly his entire family in attendance to see him off to Afghanistan.

"I was a little nervous having my whole family here, but I'm also happy and proud and ready," Medina said. "I've got a lot of support with my family and friends."

The unit has completed more than 71 Operation Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom combat deployments and controlled more than 2,000 combat sorties.

"The mission this task force is about to undertake is indescribably difficult work that very few are capable of doing," said Maj. Gen. Timothy Lowenberg, the Adjutant General of the state of Washington and commands all Washington Army and Air National Guard forces. "Less than seven-tenths of one percent of all Americans can meet the standards required to service America's military forces and in infinitesimal fraction of that percent is capable of what these men are about to do - again."