Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Marines from Bravo Company 4 CEB (Combat Engineering Battalion) load up their gear to fly our of Roanoke airport on Monday for deployment to Iraq from California.

Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Kristy, 20 and Justin Hall, 23, of Danville, have been married for three years. A marine with the Bravo Company 4 CEB (Combat Engineering Battalion), he deployed on Monday for Iraq.

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And then the waiting began.

All day Monday, friends and family of some 60 Marine reservists trekked in and out of the Reserve center on Barns Avenue.

They sat at long folding tables inside or lounged against the concrete barriers across the center's parking lot, pausing conversations as jets from nearby Roanoke Regional Airport roared overhead.

And they watched as the members of B Company, 4th Combat Engineering Battalion -- a half-dozen or so camo-clad men at a time, amid hugs and promises to e-mail -- crowded into shuttle vans that would take them to their flights.

The low-key event was a send-off for the reservists, mostly from Western Virginia, who are headed for three or four months of training in California, then to Iraq.

They'll join the thousands of other Virginia reservists, National Guard troops and active-duty military personnel already mobilized for duty in Iraq.

"It's very hard on Mom," said Salem resident Kelly Hines, who'd come to see off her son, Lance Cpl. Korey Hines. A 22-year-old trumpet player, Hines delayed his senior year at Gardner-Webb University, where he's a music major, to volunteer for Iraq, his mother said.

Nearly all the Marines departing Monday volunteered to go, though some were pulled in to bring skills the unit needed.

"It'll be something different," said Cristian Leon, a 23-year-old from Centreville whose abilities as an electrician and generator operator brought him to this deployment.

About half of the Marines had not been to Iraq before. Some had served there once since the United States invaded in 2003. A few had two or three Iraq deployments behind them.

Roanoke County residents David and Brenda Ferguson were at the center to wish safe travels to their son, Cpl. Christian Ferguson, who was heading back for a second tour in Iraq.

"He's got a job to do," Brenda Ferguson said.

Both hoped the deployment will help their son, a 23-year-old general studies major at New River Community College, with future employment in or out of the military.

Ferguson, who drives heavy trucks, was in Iraq for seven months in 2005. That time, he was with two friends from high school. They'd all signed up for a six-year Reserves stint just before the Sept. 11 attacks, his mother recalled.

"This time he seems more relaxed," David Ferguson said. "He's going to mentor some of the younger guys."

With their son off to the airport, the Fergusons said their focus has shifted to a year from now when this deployment will end.

Until then, "I'll have to hang my flag in the window again," David Ferguson said.

First Sgt. Jeffrey Goodfred, an active-duty Marine who is stationed at the center, said the lack of pomp around Monday's departure reflected a similar focus.

"Really, all the ceremony's going to come when they return," Goodfred said.