When Minnesota National Guard soldier Emily Powell receives her orders to go overseas she’ll need someone to watch her back. Some soldiers have battle buddies. Powell has her "Ya-Ya sister," Brittany Williams. "You don’t want to be in Iraq and forget to take your helmet with you. That’s what your Ya-Ya sister is for," she said. A year ago the two girls were seniors at Annandale High School. They talked on the phone, hung out and did all of the things best friends do. When Williams decided to join the Guard it seemed natural that Powell would go with her. Williams signed up in December and Powell was sworn in three months later. By Aug. 5, the two girls were on a plane to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., for basic training. They knew that nine weeks of intense physical and mental stress would either drive them apart or bring them closer together. But boot camp failed to beat the friendship out of them and they graduated as soldiers. The day after the ceremony they hopped on a bus for Fort Bliss, Texas, where they completed their advanced individual training. That’s where they picked up their nickname. "We were inseparable," Williams said. "They called us the Ya-ya sisters or the Minnesota Twins." Ya-Ya sisters is a reference to Rebecca Wells’ best-selling novel, "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," a story about close friends. "She was the first person I talked to in the morning and the last person I talked to at night," Powell said. Now the two are back in Annandale, adjusting to civilian life and looking forward to starting classes at St. Cloud State University after the holidays. And they are still keeping tabs on each other. "We’re constantly texting each other and checking in," Powell said. For Powell, joining the military is something she has wanted to do since she was 8 years old. That’s when she saw the movie "Top Gun" and decided then and there that she was going to be a pilot in the Air Force. Her ambitions have changed slightly (now she’s going for a medical degree) but her desire to serve her country hasn’t waned. Williams saw the National Guard as a road to independence. "I joined because I wanted to do it all on my own," she said. "My parents were going to pay for my college and my rent, but I wanted to do it." Everything went like clockwork for the two friends. A kind sergeant let them arrange their schedules so they could leave for basic training together, and although they weren’t in the same platoon, they were in the same company so they saw each other often. At night they would sneak into each other’s rooms, risking the wrath of their sergeants, who liked to gang up on rule-breakers in what is known in basic training as a shark attack. "That’s when all of the drill sergeants gang up on you and yell right in your face," Williams said. While the girls managed to escape the dreaded shark attack, they couldn’t do anything about getting "smoked." "Any kind of physical labor that made you feel miserable is getting smoked," Powell explained, and the sergeants liked to smoke their troops several times a day for little things like an untied shoelace. "The worst was getting smoked with sandbag PT (physical training)," Powell said. "That’s where we had to do everything with sand bags – run with sandbags over our heads, do military presses with 15-pound sandbags." But it was too hard to resist having someone from home so close and not talk to them, Williams said. So the two would steal precious moments at night to chat about people back home, and Williams would share letters from her mom that always included a motivational poem or quote. Luckily they never got caught. Eventually the last day of basic training arrived. Their final challenge was to low crawl 170 yards, at night, in the rain, under barbed wire with live rounds going off over their heads. When all of the troops, drill sergeants and even the lieutenant colonel had completed the course they celebrated with a bon fire and were called soldiers for the first time. "They played ‘American Soldier’ and shook our hands. That’s when I started crying," Williams said. "We went through hell together and came out soldiers. That’s the best feeling." Now the two are members of the St. Cloud Transportation Unit. Their job is to deliver essential equipment to soldiers during time of war. "My reasons for being in the Guard now are so different than when I joined," Williams said. "It’s about serving my country, but I didn’t go in thinking that way. Now I’m proud to wear the uniform and say I’m a soldier." Although back home and anxious for college to start, the girls are also anxious about a possible deployment to Afghanistan in 2010. They say they are ready and can’t wait for the chance to put everything they learned to good use. "What’s the point in being in the military if you can’t do your job," said Williams, who in the meantime is going to school to be a physical trainer. Besides, they will have each other to lean on if and when they do get shipped out. Like every other good soldier, they know the value of having a good battle buddy to rely on. But what they have is so much more. "I wouldn’t have found another Ya-Ya sister," Powell declared. "It definitely wouldn’t have been the same without her," Williams agreed.
