After serving in the West Virginia Army National Guard for 19 years, former Keyser High School science teacher and head football coach Tom Preaskorn didn’t expect to be called to duty for a 10 month tour in Iraq.
Leaving behind wife, Diane, and five children: Hunter, 8; Parker, 7; Toby, 5; Samantha, 3; and Andy, 14 months.
Preaskorn — a science and physical education teacher and head football coach for Allegany High School — boarded a flight first to Fort McCoy Wisconsin last June and arrived in Iraq on August 6 to begin his assigned job as assured mobility officer for the 111th engineering brigade.
“My job was to make sure the main supply routes from Bagdad to Mosul (the northern region of Iraq) were open,” said Preaskorn.
A few years prior to this deployment, Preaskorn served a 45-day tour at Fort Knox in Kentucky where he flew an Army Medevac to cover deployed soldiers who were already serving oversees.
“That’s the longest he was away prior to this tour,” said Diane.
Preaskorn wasn’t the only local solider who got deployed last June.
Westernport native and Waynesburg, Pa. resident Travis Kirby as well as former Mineral County Sheriff Pat Nield also accompanied Preaskorn to Iraq.
“Being able to see a group of young men working together to achieve a certain goal and being able to rely on each other through the hardships of being deployed reaffirms what we do,” said Preaskorn. “People you would never imagine are doing things like this, stepping up to the plate and not doing things to benefit themselves but to benefit others and improve nations. The younger generation is doing a fantastic job.”
Back home, Diane held down the fort, being both mommy and daddy to five youngsters, one of whom was only two-months-old when Preaskorn was deployed.
“It was brutal,” said Diane. “It was awful, but it was amazing what a difference the little things make. For example, one of our neighbors would pick up the older kids and take them to school (Fountain Primary) so I wouldn’t have to get everybody up to take all of them to school.”
Another neighbor would stop by once a week bringing dinner for the clan.
“One day a week I didn’t have to worry about supper,” said Diane, with a grateful smile. “I knew that I could rely on the teachers at Fountain Primary and my neighbors anytime.”
Principal at Fountain Roberta Unger describes the Preaskorns as “fantastic” and “very supportive.”
“Mrs. Preaskorn is here all the time supporting our programs and helping out any way she can,” said Unger.
Unger tells about the time Preaskorn was on a leave of absence this past spring and visited the school to speak with Hunter’s second grade and Parker’s first grade classes.
“He came here to our school dressed in his uniform. That day Hunter shared a marvelous write-up on the Pledge of Allegiance, what it meant and in children’s terms,” said Unger, about Hunter, who along with Parker, are students in the gifted and talented program at the school. “Hunter shared his paper over the intercom while his father went into the kids’ classrooms and talked to the children. It was nice because he got to hear his son over the intercom.”
Unger shared that Diane had applied for a grant through the “Our Military Kids” program and received $500 for each child that she used to cover after-school tutoring expenses for Hunter and Parker.
Keyser Primary Middle School teacher Becky Stark would visit the Preaskorn home in Woods at Taylor Lake each week to assist Hunter and Parker on specialized computer tutoring.
“Mrs. Stark did special tutoring for them through part of the grant,” said Diane.
Other acts of kindness from the community came in the unlikeliest of places — the Fountain Ruritan pancake dinners.
“They fed us many times,” said Diane, who tells about many Saturday evenings she would get her kids together and drive down the road to the Fountain Ruritan Club to have breakfast food for supper.
Another act of kindness was shown by Preaskorn’s teacher’s aide Sally McTeer, who would babysit the children once a week to allow Diane to grocery shop.
Other help came from close family friends, one of which — Melanie Dimaio — literally “saved every holiday and birthday” by cooking whole meals and delivering them to the Preaskorn home.
Pat Foley, wife of Tim Foley, defensive end coordinator at Allegany High School, both Tom and Diane’s alma mater, also assisted in all the children’s birthdays by making and decorating birthday cakes.
“She didn’t miss a birthday and made fabulous cakes,” said Diane.
Allegany High School teacher Jennifer Tasker, an old friend of Diane’s, would come to help babysit the children during football games so Diane could cheer on and follow the team.
During Christmastime, the staff at Allegany High School visited the Preaskorn home and decorated for the holidays.
All of these acts of kindness, no matter how small, do not go unnoticed or unthanked as Diane shared each one with a smile on her face.
“It never ceases to amaze me the grace and goodness in people,” said Diane. “It just shows that God is around us all of the time. It was the little things that totally got to me. Looking back on it all, it is really hard to find the words for the experience.”
To keep track of the days Preaskorn was gone, Diane and the children constructed a chain comprised of 300 paper links - one for each day he was gone, including his time in Kentucky.
As each day went by, the chain, which was draped across each window in their living room, became smaller and smaller as the children would take a link down one by one counting down the days until they would see their father again.
Currently, there is still one lone link hanging on the living room wall of the Preaskorn home.
Leaving when his youngest, Andy was just two months old, Diane said the toddler didn’t really know what to think when she saw her daddy the first week home.
“She kept looking at him like ‘Who is he,’” said Diane, laughing. “Then the next morning she looked at him again like ‘Is he still here?’ Then just the other day she walked over to him in the kitchen and reached up for him to pick her up.”
The older children said what they missed most about their father was the time he spent playing with them, and of course, his cooking. “I missed daddy’s pancakes,” said 5-year-old Toby.
Echoing his sister’s remarks, 7-year-old Parker said he missed his dad’s food.
“I missed playing with my dad,” said 8-year-old Hunter.
With plans to retire from the Army in March of next year after serving 20 years, Diane said there should be no reason why he should be deployed again, unless prompted by drastic circumstances.
Preaskorn worked at Keyser High School as science teacher for 16 and-a-half years, with half of those years serving as assistant football coach and the other half as head football coach.
In January, 2004, Preaskorn accepted a position with Allegany High School to work as a science and physical education teacher and head football coach.
While serving in the Army National Guard, Preaskorn enlisted originally as an MP – military police — but then trained and became a helicopter pilot.
Completing officer candidacy school in 1990, Preaskorn got selected for an aviation spot in pilot school.
In 1993, he became a helicopter pilot and in 2003 became Black Hawk qualified.
FORT ASHBY, W.Va. —
