Four members of Eastern’s ROTC and the Illinois National Guard attended a ceremony Thursday held in their honor for their deployment to Europe as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The four members of the ROTC are in addition to several other Eastern students in the Illinois National Guard that will be deployed for active duty in Europe on Jan. 2, members of Eastern’s ROTC said.

The students will join nearly 1,700 other soldiers from the 66th Brigade of the Illinois National Guard.

The exact number of Eastern students being deployed remains unclear.

“No one knows” exactly how many Eastern students will be deployed until they actually leave, Sara Shipley, ROTC public affairs officer, said. Calls to the local branch of the Illinois National Guard in Mattoon went unreturned.

The ROTC students who have been called upon said they have mixed feelings about leaving their loved ones to respond to the call of duty. Staff Sgt. Morrison, who would not release his first name, asked that the students’ names not be published “so they won’t be singled out.”

“I’m disappointed,” said one student. “You leave your friends and family for months.”

“This place (Eastern) feels like a home now,” said another student. “I’m not nervous, but I like being in college. But we have to leave. It’s a good cause.”

A third student agreed.

“School can always be taken care of,” he said.

“We took an oath,” said the fourth student. “This is our job.”

All four students said they did not know where or when they were going on duty.

ROTC members support their fellow cadets who will be deployed next month.

“I’m proud of them,” said graduate student Gary Kelly. “They deserve respect and credit for doing their job to protect this country.”

“It’s an awesome opportunity to defend your country,” said sophomore Lindsay Ribbe, a ROTC and therapeutic recreation major. “It requires a lot of adaptation and maturity. Anybody that I know that is going, I think they can step up to the challenge.”

“I wish I was going,” said Jason Ward, an ROTC and sophomore sociology major.

Last year, Eastern students from Mattoon Company 2-130th were called to active duty and deployed to Kuwait, Lt. Col. Larry Sefren said.

Douglas Bible, a ROTC and senior history major who was deployed to Kuwait, said that the timing of the deployment is bad for those students being called up.

“They’re missing out on a semester or more of school,” Bible said.

“It’s hard to miss that much school.”