PORT ANGELES — Three is a magic number.
The third time’s a charm.
Things happen in threes.
However you look at it, good things, bad things and just plain things are said to happen in sets of threes.
For Jeff Thayer, 48, a Port Angeles distributor for Anheuser-Busch who also is a Sgt. 1st Class in the Washington Army National Guard, three may be the end.
Thayer received orders Friday that he is being deployed to Afghanistan for six to nine months.
“I’ve been blind-sided like you would not believe,” he said.
Thayer is proud of his service to the Army and his country and considers himself a patriot, but in the past three years Thayer spent 13 months in Iraq and six weeks in New Orleans helping residents cope with the lingering nightmare of Hurricane Katrina.
He just returned from that deployment last month.
Now, he’ll be gone for at least a half a year.
He is to report for duty at Fort Lewis on Tuesday morning. When he returns home after the deployment he plans to retire.
“It’s nothing against guard whatsoever,” Thayer said.
“It’s time.”
He’ll be retiring after more than 20 years service, including 12 years active duty in the Army.
