DUBLIN — At 4 a.m., Ricky Stanley bolts awake. Not wanting to disturb his wife, he slips out of bed and walks outside to think in the cool night air. He sits on the front steps. His dog, Blackie, sidles up next to him.

It's a week before he will leave for Iraq, and the nightmare has returned. He's fighting for his life in hand-to-hand combat. But no matter what he does, he can't muster the strength to kill the man who wants to kill him.

Rich Addicks/AJC (ENLARGE)
A pensive Ricky Stanley sits on the edge of his bunk at Fort Stewart just before his deployment to Iraq in mid-May. After months of training, he said, 'it's finally sinking in.' He left behind his wife and two daughters.
Rich Addicks/AJC (ENLARGE)
Belinda Stanley and her daughters, Ra'Teema (left), 14, and Chazmine, 12, cluster in their kitchen to read Ricky's e-mails from Iraq. They chuckle at his typing — but take in every word.
(ENLARGE)
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• More photos of Ricky Stanley's deployment • Ricky Stanley talks about his departure for Iraq • Stanley's wife, Belinda, talks about her husband's departure • Previous article on Dublin's role in the Iraq war

The dreams began last year when Ricky heard that his National Guard unit would be mobilized for war. They intensified this spring during combat training in the California desert, where he became so upset he almost got into a fight and had to take blood pressure medication for the first time. They followed him home to Georgia, where he has a 10-day leave before shipping out and finds himself thrashing the sheets of his king-size bed.

In a few days, Ricky will begin a journey that will take him more than 6,700 miles from home. He has never been out of the United States, much less in a war zone. He's an American soldier now — Sgt. Ricky Stanley — and will drive a 5-ton Army supply truck on some of the world's most dangerous roads. But as his wife says, he's still a country boy.

Ricky feels closer to God in the reverent hush of a deep country night. In the darkness of this morning in early May, the outlines of pine trees make a vaulted cathedral of his yard. He takes a vial of anointing oil, dips his fingers and performs a ritual as old as the Bible, tracing a cross on his forehead and another on his chest.

"Dear Lord," he prays, "give me a sense of calm. Give me the peace of mind to defend myself."

In the fleeting days he has between training and deployment, Ricky tries to put Iraq out of his mind and dwell on the things he'll miss about home. The serenity. The lush landscape. The food. The people — especially the people. He spends much of his leave making the rounds to say goodbye to his many friends and relatives around Dublin.

On Mother's Day, it's time to bid farewell to his church family.

He circulates through the aisles at Mount Tilla Missionary Baptist Church, greeting members he hasn't seen since he was activated in January and won't see again for many months. A hug here, a handshake there, a cheerful word for everyone. "Girl," he tells a lady in a raspberry ensemble, "you look like new money."

Ricky looks sharp himself in his brown long-waisted suit, cream tie and shirt, cuffs turned outside the jacket sleeves to better show off his shiny cuff links. He smells sharp, too, thanks to a splash of Calvin Klein's Truth, a Father's Day gift from last year. At 35, he has a thin mustache and a grinningly boyish manner that overshadows the receding hairline that suggests a preview of middle age.

With him are his 34-year-old wife, Belinda, a former cheerleader with a smile and vivacious manner to match her husband's, and their two daughters, 14-year-old Ra'Teema and 12-year-old Chazmine, both polite and a bit shy in their coltish middle school years.

Belinda and the girls head for the choir loft, and Ricky takes a seat in the deacons corner. He picks up a hand fan and looks out on the sanctuary where so much of his life has played out.

As a boy, he was dunked in the baptismal pool hidden behind the pulpit. As a teenager, he sat on the back pew with his new girlfriend, Belinda. As an adult, he watched the preacher baptize his children in the same pool where he had been immersed.

The church has given structure to his family, and his family has given structure to the church. His father, a brickmason and farmer, helped rebuild the sanctuary, bricking the exterior walls 45 years ago.

Carnell Stanley, a genial man in his mid-60s, sits in the deacons corner with his son. Shortly after the service begins, he limps to the prayer bench in front and bends down on one of his bad knees. Then he lays down his cane ? and lets loose.

"Lord, bless my son on the battlefields of Iraq," he sings out in a husky voice, beginning a long, free-form soliloquy, punching the air for emphasis, rocking to and fro like Ray Charles.

Then it's the pastor's turn. The Rev. Willie T. Strange, who is out to get God's attention with an electric blue suit and white cowboy boots, intercedes for all the Dublin-area families whose men and women have been called up with the Georgia National Guard's 48th Brigade Combat Team.

"We pray that you look down on Brother Ricky Stanley and all of the crew as they prepare to move on," he implores. "Be their shield and their protection. Let your angels look over him and his wife and children, and his father and his sisters and brothers. Oh, Dr. Jesus! Let his wife know that you are there and everything's going to be all right."

Up in the choir loft, Belinda doesn't look so sure.

She worries about money, how she will support the family on Ricky's military pay and her job as a receptionist with the Laurens County Board of Education.

Above all, she worries about his safety — and his soul. Ricky has been devout since he was a boy and used to fall asleep with a Bible on his chest. Belinda wonders how a man who has contemplated the Ten Commandments his whole life will react in an alien land where his survival may depend on killing someone.

Ricky is no conscientious objector; Belinda knows he'll do what has to be done. But what if that means committing an act he cannot live with morally?

She knows the sharp-dressed deacon better than anyone.

What if he comes back a dif-ferent man?

After the 31?2-hour service ends, the Stanleys return home for a potluck feast with a house full of kin. Ricky sheds his Sunday finery for shorts and T-shirt, and sinks into one of the his-and-her rocker recliners facing a big-screen TV that blares the NBA playoffs. Belinda and their relatives lay out ham, barbecued chicken, beans, collard greens, corn bread, sweet potato pie. As he inhales the aroma, a dreamy look comes over Ricky's face. "I want to savor every memory," he says.

Ricky and Belinda live outside Montrose, a small town west of Dublin, near the farm where he grew up. They started dating in the 10th grade at West Laurens High and began their life together in a mobile home they can see across the field from their garage.

When the children came, Belinda wanted a bigger double-wide. Ricky prayed about it and announced that God was leading them to something better: a real home, made of brick. A National Guard buddy referred them to his son-in-law, who worked at a bank, and a providential loan was arranged.

The Stanleys built their house five years ago, Ricky, his father and brother doing the intricate brickwork themselves. The family furnished it in a style that could be called Modern Baptist. In the entrance foyer, the first thing that catches the eye is a display case of religious figurines. In the dining room, an angel of color blesses the table from a wall painting.

The doorbell rings. Ricky waves at his goddaughter and settles back into his recliner, muting the TV. He wants to talk.

He signed up for the Guard in high school, he says, figuring that he might go to college and need some help with tuition. Instead, he started working with his father's masonry business. He still does, every morning after he gets off from his primary job as the overnight shipping supervisor at the YKK door and window frame plant in Dublin. Late in the day, he squeezes in some time with his family and catches three or four hours of sleep before he reports back to the factory at 11 p.m.

He stayed in the Guard, Ricky continues, because he wanted to qualify for the pension. Besides, he usually likes the duty. He has been mobilized several times in 16 years because of natural disasters or to provide security for events like the G-8 economic summit or the Atlanta Olympics.

"I was helping people," he says. "I never thought I'd go to a war zone."

Belinda didn't either. She opposes the war in Iraq and held tight to a rumor that her husband's outfit would be deployed for homeland security instead of fighting halfway around the world.

When Ricky left for training in the Mojave Desert of California this spring, it was the longest he had been away from Belinda since they married. The monthlong separation vexed him.

One day a soldier started riding him, cussing at him, and Ricky snapped. He went after the bully but was restrained before he could take a swing. Ricky was so unnerved that he was ordered into counseling and had to take pills temporarily to lower his blood pressure.

"I didn't control my temper," Ricky says of his uncharacteristic behavior. "Just because I'm a Christian and I smile a lot doesn't mean I'm weak. A dog'll bite you every now and then if you keep kicking it."

He talked to Belinda every day from California, but he didn't tell her everything. He certainly didn't tell her that he was "killed" twice during training exercises.

But the family knows all too well what can happen in Iraq.

Before dinner, Ricky's oldest daughter says she needs to see him. Ricky has a playful relationship with his girls, wrestling with them and even playing one-on-one basketball with Ra'Teema, who suits up for West Laurens Middle School. Today she has a surprise for her dad. "Happy not Father's Day," she says, handing him a card she made on blue construction paper at school. She knows he'll be overseas by June, so she's giving it to him six weeks early.

"Daddy," it reads in large hand-drawn letters. "The name represents boldness, courage and helpfulness. It is the color of kindness and the sound of loyalty ? His name is Ricky Bernard Stanley ? and it means that he is willing to go die for our country."

Daddy takes in the last line and manages a tight smile.

On his last full day as a civilian, Ricky wants to work on one of his father's home-building jobs.

"Me and him are like brothers," he says this morning as he drives to his dad's farm a mile down the road. "He taught us to work hard. We've been working since we could tote a brick."

Ricky turns his '94 Ford Explorer onto the dirt drive that enters his father's spread. It could be a dividing line between his family's past and present. On the left is the rickety frame house where the patriarch was raised. On the right is the much newer brick home where he lives now. Ricky points out some uncompleted brickwork in the back and laughs. "He's never finished his own house."

The road bounds across the fields and leads to a maze of hogpens, where a man in dusty blue work pants held up by suspenders is bent over a trough. He stands up and smiles, oblivious to the stench, and proclaims, "It's a beautiful day."

Ricky waits for his father to finish slopping the hogs. Then he follows his pickup to the work site 20 minutes away in Cochran, giving his horn a little honk as he passes his sister's place. Along the way, Ricky scans the woods and mist-veiled fields through a bug-splattered windshield as if he were stockpiling images of home.

"Man," he says, shaking his head, "these days are going fast."

Outside of Cochran, he whips out a cellphone and hits speed-dial.

"Booney! Booney! Where y'all?"

"Booney" is his brother Carnell Jr., another Stanley mason, who directs Ricky to the job.

Tim Payne, the contractor, greets the new arrivals with a testimonial. "I've been working with the Stanleys for years. They're the best brickmasons around and as fine a family as you'd want to find. When they really get working, it's fun to hear them singing gospel music."

He adds something in a lower voice that Ricky and his father can't hear.

"I can tell Mr. Stanley is worried. It doesn't matter how old your son is. You worry."

Ricky and his dad unload their trowels and levels and get to work. They're laying concrete blocks for the foundation, slathering them with mortar, tapping them into place, deftly pointing the joints. They operate smoothly, like two parts of the same machine, never getting in each other's way. It helps that the son is right-handed and the father left-handed.

There's another crew at work that includes Ricky's brother and his Uncle Marvin. A gray-bearded man in his late 50s, he understands what his nephew faces; he saw combat with the Army in Vietnam.

"Marvin," Ricky calls out, "why don't you do another tour of duty and take my place in Iraq?"

Marvin cackles, baring a smile that's a few teeth short of a quorum.

"Yeah, I was wounded three times," he says. "I still have shrapnel in my neck."

While Ricky has experienced a kind of pre-traumatic stress with his nightmares, his uncle has suffered the traditional after-the-fact variety.

Four decades on, he still has terrible dreams of fighting in Vietnam and attends counseling sessions at the VA hospital in Dublin. He has warned Ricky about what might happen.

Marvin lays down his trowel. "War," he says, "can change a man."

Two days later, Ricky sits on the edge of his bunk at Fort Stewart. The 48th Brigade is preparing to leave for the Middle East, and he's taking stock of the spiritual body armor he will carry into battle: gospel CDs, a Bible study journal, a bandanna displaying "the Soldier's Psalm," Psalm 91: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day. ? "

He's packing two Bibles. He plans to keep a miniature in his breast pocket. "I call that one my dagger. I'll whip it out whenever I need a quick look at the Word."

The other one, big enough to anchor a pulpit, comes in its own zip-up valise. This Bible holds special meaning for Ricky; when he and Belinda were living in the mobile home, he kept the plans for their dream house folded up between its pages.

Belinda doesn't hear from Ricky for several days. Then one Friday morning at work, her cellphone rings. It's her husband calling for the first time from Kuwait, where most of the Georgians are awaiting transport into Iraq.

As she recalls their conversation, she can't forget the lost-little-boy tone in his voice.

"If anything happens to me," Ricky says, "tell the kids I love them. I just want to make sure they're taken care of."

It sounds like a last will and testament.

"If I've ever taken you for granted," he goes on, "I apologize. You've been a good wife, and I love you."

Belinda stops him. "Ricky, I don't like the way you're talking."

They are half a world apart, Belinda at her desk in Dublin, Ricky at a pay phone in the Persian Gulf with a line of soldiers standing behind him. But the distance can't diminish their emotions. They both burst into tears.

Belinda's brother, who has just walked into the school board offices to see her, asks whether Ricky is all right. Some of her co-workers hear her sobs and, assuming it's bad news, begin weeping themselves.

Belinda retreats to the boardroom, and she and her husband continue to console each other tearfully over satellite uplink. At one point, Ricky's battle buddy, Darrell Taylor, takes the phone in Kuwait and tries to calm her. "We're going to take care of him."

Later, as she thinks about the meltdown, Belinda realizes she and Ricky were giving vent to fears they had not really talked about. They wanted to be strong for the children, but they weren't being strong for each other. Ricky's father assures Belinda that it isn't a sign of weakness to cry. Shortly after his son left, he confides, he was planting some peanuts and "let some tears fall myself."

Belinda spends much of the weekend under a blanket on the living room sofa. She hurts, emotionally and physically, like she hasn't hurt since her mother died. Relatives and friends who drop by the house recognize what she's feeling; they bring cakes and speak in low, solicitous tones.

But there is no black crepe on Belinda's door — only a red, white and blue ribbon she bought at Wal-Mart.

Last Father's Day, Belinda and the girls gave Ricky a bottle of pricey cologne and took him to his favorite all-you-can-eat place in Dublin, Ole Times Country Buffet. This Father's Day, they want to make sure he's just as well-provisioned.

It's a Monday night, and the Stanley dining room overflows with snacks and supplies designed to make Ricky's life in Iraq a little easier. There are sandals, underwear, baby powder, Skin So Soft, a pillow, an inflatable mattress, a selection of DVDs that includes Ricky's No. 1 movie, "Shaft." And because this Army of one travels on its sweet tooth, there's enough junk food to cater a summer camp: honey buns, hard candy, Fiddle Faddle, Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies.

"Ricky's been losing weight since he got to Iraq," Belinda explains as they stuff three cardboard boxes for shipment. "When he gets depressed, I want him to have something to eat."

Her husband specifically requested many of the items because of something that happened shortly after he arrived in Baghdad. He's stationed near one end of the airport and wants to avoid having to visit the main shopping exchange near the other end. That's where a rocket attack killed one U.S. soldier and wounded 16 others during his second night in Iraq.

Ricky's military job is dangerous enough without extracurricular rambles. Earlier in the day, Belinda had received an e-mail from him. Ricky was getting ready to deliver supplies along the airport highway, the site of so many bombings and ambushes that Iraqis call it Death Street. His typing is sloppy, but his sentiment is spotless:

"Igo on my first mission tonight at 2200 hours. Hold me in your prayers. I've been nervous allday, but i got to do what I got to do.Baby i love and miss you very much. Icant wait until this year is over.I have so many plans for us.Inever want to be apart from you and my girls again.Love you i got to go."

Belinda continues packing the boxes. She knows her husband needs more than treats and comforts; he needs tokens of home. The care package contains no fewer than five Father's Day cards, among them a silly one that shows a chimp wearing a crown sitting on a toilet — inside family joke. It also includes the "not Father's Day" card Ra'Teema made at school, now framed and signed "From your oldest baby girl."

For good measure, Belinda throws in a photo album. She beams as she leafs through the snapshots: their last vacation at Tybee Island, Ra'Teema playing basketball, Chazmine leading cheers, Belinda in her high school graduation gown.

One picture shows their handsome brick home in the Georgia pines.

"I just want him to remember where he came from," Belinda says, as if he could ever forget.

— Staff writer Jim Auchmutey can be reached at jauchmutey@ajc.com, staff writer Anna Varela at avarela@ajc.com, and staff photographer Rich Addicks at raddicks@ajc.com.