MOTT - Mott knows when its guys go off to war they need to talk to the guy upstairs and loved ones back home.

People are helping them with prayers for the first line of communication and phone cards for the second.

In just a few days, the town will say goodbye to 34 National Guardsmen with the 141st Combat Engineer Battalion, the men from town and the area who drill at the armory downtown once a month and maintain the big army-green equipment parked next to the Cannonball River.

Mott also will send them off with full stomachs, a meal of roast prime rib and the trimmings served at the Knights of Columbus Hall this evening.

Not to diss a good homemade noodle dish, but Mott Mayor Troy Mosbrucker wanted the meal to be first class.

"There'll be no potluck for the boys tomorrow night," he said.

In fact, the mayor's in charge of preparing the prime rib.

It's the least the town can do.

The men have the hard part, maybe 18 months ahead of them in Iraq, helping with the war and reconstruction effort. They're among 600 from the battalion who have been activated, the second 600-strong Guard battalion to leave North Dakota.

They leave two days after Christmas Day, when the kids are still busy with new gifts from Santa and the leftover turkey is about to be made into the creamed version served on toast.

They'll leave a dent in town, these men who hold regular jobs or run the farm.

It's a hard time to leave hearth and home, but there is never an easy time.

Thursday and today, the 34 men from Detachment 1, Company C, were down at the armory at the end of Mott's main street, packing up their gear and necessities.

Darrell Schulz, 37, of Bismarck, packed pictures his kids colored and a football from his boy. With Magic Marker, the boy wrote, "I'll love you forever and always," on the football.

Schulz had just gotten his 20-year letter from the Guard when he was activated in early December. Instead of retiring, like he'd planned, he's leaving home.

Like a lot of guys, he's taking a laptop computer so he can talk to the family by e-mail.

The laptop was a gift from his employer, Basin Electric Power Cooperative, and said to be a "must have" item by the men and women already over there.

Schulz - so close to the end of his Guard career - said he's nervous deep down like everybody.

"This is something I've got to do," he said. "I want to get over there, get this done and get back."

Brian Manolovits, of Mott, got welcome news from his wife at the same time he got the less welcome news from the guard.

His wife is pregnant. "We've been trying for a long time and then it happens now," he said.

Manolovits joined the Guard for the extra income and now he'll really earn his pay.

"I guess we've got a job to do," he said.

Wayne Iszler, of Elgin, packed his gear and mentally ticked off another list - things to do to ready his home for his absence.

He knows he can't think of everything - just like the guys know they can't make up for a long absence no matter how hard they try ahead of time. Love can't be compressed into one-a-day tablets.

Iszler's worst fear is that one of the guys in the armory, guys like him with a wife and kids and a commitment to life, won't come back.

These are machine operators, trained to build and remove obstacles like wrecked tanks and the like. Before they leave, they'll be trained to operate shoulder-held launchers and other munitions.

Iszler said time is going fast. It always does at Christmas, when there's so much to do in a short time.

Now, with so much more than Christmas on the calendar, the pace is picking up as the days get shorter.

"Time is at a dead run," Iszler said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)