On command, the families of the brigade stood Sunday in the Free State High School auditorium and prepared to say goodbye to their soldiers.

“I know your next year is going to be filled with tears and joy,” Col. Alex Duckworth, the commander of the 130th Field Artillery Brigade, told the families. “This is an adventure. It’s not a year sentence to purgatory.”

The 46 members of the 130th, based in Topeka, will head to Wisconsin this week for training before shipping off to war in Iraq, likely somewhere near Baghdad.

But for most of the families, there was no training for mornings waking up without a husband, wife or parent at home.

So Duckworth gave the best advice he could Sunday, telling soldiers’ families to make friends with other war wives and husbands for support.

“You need a confidant, someone you can turn to,” Duckworth said.

The ceremony wasn’t all about the families that soldiers would leave behind. The soldiers leaving for duty heard from Army dignitaries and listened to a choir from Wakarusa School perform.

Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the state adjutant general, read a letter from Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, wishing the troops well.

He spoke at length about freedom, about honor – the things the 130th would be sent to defend, he said.

Then, Wakarusa Valley students rose and began singing song after song about America, war and patriotism.

Behind them, photos of the 130th flashed on the wall. Some of the men in the photos furrowed their brows or stared out with tired eyes. A few cracked slight smiles.

In the photos, beards and temples were flaked with gray hair. Many hairlines receded from foreheads. These were people with spouses, children – lives at home they would leave to fight in a desert on the other side of the world.

And from the stage, the children sung out: “This is America.”

After the ceremony, the soldiers and their families flooded out into the halls of the school. The men and women of the 130th received orders from their commanders, then went to spend a final few moments with their families and loved ones.

Nicole Schnell held tightly to her boyfriend, Sgt. Andrew Nicks. When the Kansas City-area couple finally pulled away, her eyes were wet and red.

“We told each other it would be OK,” she said, watching Nicks and the other soldiers gather at a table. “We’ve tried to talk about things, to get things straightened out.”

Across the hall, Bailey Crosby and her younger sister wiped tears from their face. Their father, Sgt. Maj. James Crosby, stood by, talking with other soldiers.

Bailey Crosby has felt this before – her father left for duty when she was 16 – but now, as she approaches her final year at Pomona High School, she doesn’t want to face another year without him at home.

“He’s missing my whole senior year,” she said, pulling a strand of blond hair from her face. “I try not to think about it.”

Her father walked up with the rest of his family. In the brigade’s standard-issue fatigues and combat boots, he said preparing for a year apart is just as difficult for him.

“It’s very emotional for everyone. I’m missing a big chunk of their lives,” he said, looking down at Bailey. “That’s the toughest part.”