ATLANTA -- Sgt. Eric Ladow crammed as much baseball as possible into his short trip home from Afghanistan.
The Ohio native saw the Cincinnati Reds play the Minnesota Twins last Sunday and returned to Great American Ballpark the next day to watch the Reds play the Milwaukee Brewers.
On Sunday, Ladow, a 24-year-old Ohio State alum who called himself a huge football and Cincinnati Bengals fan, jumped at a chance to make his first visit to Turner Field.
He spent a day of R&R with other soldiers watching the Braves play the Washington Nationals at Turner Field as part of FOX Sports South's and the Braves' Tribute to the Troops.
"It's the American pastime, and you should do the American thing when you're back home," Ladow said. "I love Great American Ballpark; it's so much better than Riverfront Stadium. I like Turner Field, though. From what I've seen, they did a great job transitioning it from the Olympic stadium to a ballpark."
Two buses brought the soldiers of all ranks to Turner Field, where they received the red carpet treatment.
Most, like Ladow, a medic with the 684th Air Support Medical Company, will be deployed soon for their return trip to Afghanistan.
"To be able to come out to the ballpark and see a major league baseball game before heading back to the battlefield is an excellent opportunity for the guys," said Maj. Mark Brown, the commander of the Personnel Assistance Point in Atlanta. "They're excited to come to the ballpark and to experience a major league baseball game. It's a last hoorah before they go back to the sandbox."
Chief Warrant Officer Brian Clyde has attended MLB games in Minneapolis and Seattle, but this was his first trip to Turner Field. He's now been to 33 countries, but only three major-league stadiums.
"We're all coming back off of leave, so this is a wonderful opportunity to come back and do this," said Clyde, a Chinook helicopter pilot with the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB).
Spc. Levi Villars, 22, wasn't about to miss a chance to see the Braves and Chipper Jones, his favorite player, even though he went to plenty of Braves games while growing up in Fayetteville, Ga. He even brought along his dad (David), his mom (Michelle), twin brothers (Joshua and Caleb) and youngest brother (Andrew), who rode to the game on the same buses as the soldiers.
"I have pictures when he was little – 5 or 6 years old -- with his Braves caps on," Michelle Villars said.
Villars' toughest adjustment on his break was going from working seven days a week with the 192nd Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Battalion to "having absolutely nothing to do, with my family waiting at my beck and call."
Michelle said the first thing Levi wanted to do after they picked him up from the airport was take off his shoes and walk barefoot in the grass. That was followed by countless trips to Chick-fil-A and his favorite Mexican restaurants.
"I've been sending him Chick-fil-A sauce in his care packages," she said. "Whenever they serve the chicken, it's terrible, but it's a little better with the sauce."
Levi has completed two years at Clemson and would like to enroll in the Army's Green to Gold Program, which helps enlisted personnel earn bachelor's degrees and become officers.
"(College) wasn't for me at the time. I wasn't ready for it," he said. "I feel like the army has definitely trained me and prepared me to go back into that with a goal-oriented, focused mind-set."
Villars said he'd never seen the Braves win when he's been attendance, something that didn't change Sunday, when the Nationals won 8-4. There are only a few chances to watch the Braves on TV at his base in Afghanistan.
"I think the highest-ranking guy is a Cardinals fan, because that's all we watch. Cardinals and the Mets," Villars said. "If they're playing, there's no chance to see the Braves."
