VIRGINIA GRANTIER/Bismarck Tribune

Click here to see video of the send-off.

His wife and daughters were standing along side a stretch of Bismarck road that people don't ordinarily stand beside.

A noisy piece of dusty Bismarck Expressway along an industrial stretch in front of McQuade Distributing Co. Inc.

They wanted to wave goodbye to him.

And a bit after 7 p.m., there he was, somewhere, Staff Sgt. Gene Weil - somewhere behind a tinted window in a shiny moose of a bus that roared by, and then there was a second bus, followed by more than 100 motorcyclists showing their support of the soldiers.

Weil, 34, is on his way to Camp Atterbury, Ind., for training and then on to Iraq, along with 44 other soldiers of the North Dakota National Guard's 34th Engineer Brigade. They have been assigned to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure - in areas from Kirkuk in the north to Basra in the southeast. They are scheduled to return home in 15 months.

"He was choked up … when he said, 'Yep, I see you,'"said Weil's high school sweetheart and wife of 13 years, Donnette Weil, who was talking to him on a cell phone as he passed.

Donnette Weil, 35, and her daughters, Marah and Ariane, ages 4 and 10, weren't alone. About 30 more family members and friends were there, too.

And along a stretch from about Divide Avenue to Main Avenue were friends and family of other soldiers. They held flags and balloons, and tried to hang on to their trying-to-be-brave smiles.

"I'm scared," said Weil's older daughter, Ariane Weil, who teared up. And she found a hug from her mom.

Her dad left them each necklaces, and also left notes all over the house for his daughters and wife.

Ariane Weil found one on a toilet roll that instructed her to look at the stars when she wanted to talk to him.

"I'll always be listening for you,"he wrote to his daughter.

(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8260 or virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)