SPRINGFIELD - Sgt. Erika Holliday recently returned to school to earn a teaching certificate in order to switch careers from working in banks.

But Holliday, 30, who earned her certificate at Eastern Illinois University, is putting aside her plan of teaching physical education to high school students.

For much of the coming year Holliday will be in Iraq, working with injured soldiers and filling out reports on fatalities.

Sgt. Holliday, a single mother of an 8-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, said she is confident her team will be safe in Iraq.

"It's a lot better than it used to be," Holliday said. "It's gotten a lot safer. I'm not as worried as if I was going to Afghanistan."

Holliday of Charleston has arranged for Kaitlyn to live with relatives in Vandalia during her tour.

A member of the Springfield-based 623rd Personnel Services Detachment of the Illinois National Guard, Holliday will embark on her first overseas tour of duty in about three weeks, after a training stint at Camp Atterbury, Ind.

"We'll most likely be attached to a hospital," Holliday said. "We deal with the paperwork and documentation of the injuries. It is then funneled up through channels. The people in the States deal directly with the families. We will be dealing with the soldiers and the people above us who will pass the information on."

At a deployment ceremony held Monday at Camp Lincoln, the National Guard's headquarters base, about 200 family members and friends gathered to say good-bye to 18 soldiers. The soldiers will be serving in three teams: two will be in separate Iraq locations, while the other is deployed in Afghanistan.

"There aren't many of them, but what they do is critically important," said Maj. Gen. William Enyart, adjutant General of the Illinois National Guard, who recently returned from Afghanistan. "There is no tougher job in the Army and there is no job that is more important. I know you are going to do a great job for us."

First Lt. Kyle Miholic, commander of the 623rd, said the 18 soldiers were particularly chosen because of their outstanding technical abilities, their aptitudes for learning and their ability to work together in teams.

The job description calls for doing the job perfectly the first time, because mistakes regarding casualty issues may cause serious problems.

"They are the best of the best," Miholic said, adding they were chosen from the entire 644th Personnel Services Battalion, with almost 150 members.

Miholic said the deployed soldiers have previously performed similar kinds of work, related to payroll and other personnel issues.

"It's not a huge shift," he said. "If a guy doesn't get paid, it's a pretty big deal."

Only two soldiers on this deployment roster have been previously deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. But all of them have been trained by veterans of those wars, especially in tactical skills.

Miholic said he was proud that all the 18 soldiers qualified on the M4 carbine (a shortened version of the M16 rifle), while almost all successfully learned to insert an intravenous needle in a patient, to prevent shock in case of a serious injury.

U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, who served 28 years in the Army Reserve, was among a group of officials who shook hands with each soldier before they boarded the bus for Camp Atterbury.

Shimkus, a supporter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the selfless sacrifices of U.S. soldiers have produced positive results, including democracies which replaced brutal totalitarian regimes.

"In both countries you have people willing to risk their lives to cast votes," Shimkus said.

Spc. Eric Mines, 21, of Effingham, said he has been expecting to be deployed overseas since he joined the Guard four years ago.

"I'm ready," said Mines, who is serving on Team One, along with Sgt. Holliday. "I've been wanting to go over for awhile."

Mines, who recently became engaged to Valerie Niemyer of Teutopolis, said he plans to be married after his deployment.

"I'm going to miss my family," said Mines, whose mother, Beth Mines, is a carrier for the Herald & Review. "I'm ready to go over there and get my time in."

Beth Mines said she wishes her son was not going to Iraq, but she is very proud of him. She said Eric, who has been helping his mother with her 3 a.m. paper route since he was a small boy, was obviously cut out for military service. He has always been fascinated with weapons.

"We're scared to death for him," Beth Mines said. "I guess that's to be expected from parents and family, to be scared for him. That was an extremely hard trip taking him to Springfield."

Derek Lovins, 28, who lives in the tiny town of Dewitt, near Clinton Lake, said it will tough for him to be away from his wife, Kelly, and 6-year-old daughter, Hailey.

"It's going to be hard, but we've been preparing for it," said Lovins, who joined the Guard almost nine years ago. "We knew it was coming eventually. Everybody's been saying we're the best of our battalion. We are the most knowledgeable of our jobs."

Lovins said he is not concerned about his safety, although he will be in Afghanistan, now considered the more dangerous of the two war zones.

"Our training has prepared us well," Lovins said. "We are going to go there and we are going to do our jobs. And hopefully we are going to come home safely."

hfreeman@herald-review.com|421-6985