Special Report

Spc. Gary Silcott, 22
Unit: Birmingham

If you see Gary Silcott, chances are his buddy, Timothy Banks, isn’t far behind.

“I don’t go anywhere without Tim,” Silcott, 22, said.

“I’m his rock,” Banks, 20, said with a laugh.

Inseparable since their days at Brookwood High School, there was one place that the friends couldn’t go together: Iraq.

Silcott is a supply clerk in the Alabama National Guard, and he spent 15 months in Iraq last year.

Patriotism compelled him into military service. But the day he learned of his deployment was the worst day of his four years with the Guard, Silcott said.

“I was sad, depressed,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave.”

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Silcott’s deployment was no picnic for Banks either.

“That was hard,” he said. “Backing out of that parking space and leaving him there was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

Since Silcott’s return seven months ago, the two friends are right back in step. They always hang out together. They even live down the street from one another.

But Banks said while their friendship hasn’t changed, he has noticed some subtle differences in Silcott.

“Fireworks make him crazy,” he said. “But he’s also more understanding, and he’s not as easy to piss off.”

Silcott said while on a mission in Baghdad, his unit routinely came under small arms fire, along with mortar and IED attacks. No soldier from his Northport-based unit was killed, he said. But some were injured.

“I’m not going to lie,” he said. “I was scared to death. Every time I went out of the gate I wondered if this was the night that something would happen to me, if this was the night that I wouldn’t come home.”

Though he is safe at home now, Silcott said he is always on guard. He often scans crowds for people who look like they might start something, or worse: they might be carrying a gun.

Metallic sounds and explosive-like noises make him jumpy, he said. This often makes it hard to enjoy simple things like someone shooting fireworks on race day at the Talladega Superspeedway, Silcott said.

Sensitive to these idiosyncrasies, Banks now scans crowds, too. It just comes with the territory of being Silcott’s friend.

Accepting that they will be separated again when Silcott heads for Afghanistan at the end of next year is also part of that friendship.

“I don’t want him to go, I want him here,” Banks said. “He’s like my brother.

“But when he put his name on that piece of paper and signed his life away, I knew that he would have to go.”

Silcott is prepared to go, even if he’s not sure whether he will re-enlist when his contract is up in early 2009.

“I gotta go,” he said. “That’s what I signed a contract for.”