ST. PAUL, Minn. — More than 550 members of the Minnesota National Guard’s 34th Red Bull Infantry Division are deployed in Jordan and Kuwait, but a special operation back here in Minnesota helped bring those soldiers together with their loved ones thousands of miles away.
Several hundred friends and family of deployed National Guard members packed the inside of Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul Saturday.
It wasn’t so much the steak lunch bringing them there as it was the opportunity to connect with loved ones abroad over Zoom, like Mike McCauley’s son, Joe.
“It is very challenging. It’s one thing, the communication. Yeah, we can text, but it’s not the same,” said Mike McCauley.
Joe McCauley is a sergeant, husband and father of two now stationed in Kuwait working as a satellite communication operator.
“Something he’s always wanted to do,” said Mike McCauley.
“I really know my daddy’s going to come home, but I don’t know when,” said Joe McCauley’s 5-year-old son Calvin.