DEMOPOLIS-Ms. Teresa Fikes is making the journey the average woman wouldn’t think twice about doing.

Fikes, 31, is one of the few women in the Demopolis National Guard Armory unit, 167th Engineer Company, being deployed to Iraq.

It’s her first time having such a task since she joined the Guard eight years ago.

“I’m ready to go and get it over with so I can come back home,” Fikes said.

Fikes, a single woman, said she found out about her deployment in June.

As part of the preparation, Fikes told her employer and family.

“They took it pretty well,” she said.

Ella Fikes, Teresa’s mother, said she wasn’t excited about the news at all upon first hearing, but has “come to adjust.”

The Uniontown native said she didn’t believe they were really going over when she first heard the news.

It wasn’t until the 167th went for training when reality began to sink in.

“I still kind of don’t believe it,” she said. “It’ll hit me when my feet get in the sand.”