By JOSEPH B. NADEAU

WOONSOCKET — Rhode Island National Guard Master Sgt. Denise Spink-Morin is a familiar face around local veteran’s organizations and is often found at the services and ceremonies they sponsor in the area.

Spink-Morin maintains a busy military career in addition to being a working mom to her sons, Christopher, 7, and Nicholas, 26, and wife of Victor Morin.
She is a full-time member of the Rhode Island Air National Guard’s 281st Combat Communications Group out of North Smithfield where she works as a support services supervisor.
And now for the first time, Spink-Morin will be heading off to war to join other members of her unit already on duty in Iraq.
The impeding March deployment drew Spink-Morin another duty on Tuesday, that of guest speaker at the Business and Professional Women’s Club monthly dinner at River Falls Restaurant, 74 South Main St.
Spink-Morin is a longtime member of the group herself and has served as a past local and state club president.
“We are scared to death for her and we are going to expect email everyday,” Linda Klinka, the current club president, said during the dinner.
Klinka said Spink-Morin is a very active member of the group and has helped to set up the Business and Professional Women’s Club state conference on June 13 that will also be drawing members of Connecticut and New Hampshire clubs to the Hampton Inn & Suites in Smithfield when it kicks off on June 13.
Marion Sanford, the owner of Commercial Heating Service in Cumberland and a past club president, said Spink-Morin has carried out many projects for the group over the years even while helping out other groups.
“She is just a very, very active woman and has her heart in many places,” Sanford said.
 Spink-Morin told the group about her role with the Air National Guard and also what she might be facing while on duty in Iraq, at least from the perspective of what she has learned through pre-deployment briefings and tips coming from Guard members who have already served tours of duty there.
“They told me to be ready to carry 80 pounds of equipment on my back and I said that’s ok, my son weighs 90 pounds and I can carry him on my back,” she said.
One of the club’s members asked Spink-Morin what the temperature would be in Iraq when she arrived there, and the soldier responded that was something she would have to wait to find out.
While this is her first trip to the war zone, Spink-Morin said other members of her unit have been there once before not long after Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
The assignment will require her to spend three months in Iraq not counting travel and training time, and Spink-Morin said she is looking forward to the experience.
“I feel like it is part of my duty,” she said. “I joined the military for a reason and this is part of my reason for joining,” she said.
 Spink-Morin has been a member of the Rhode Island National Guard for 32 years and full-time member for 22 of those years.
She will be leaving on March 9 with six other unit members and will join a group of 45 members of 281st already there.
Spink-Morin will be working at support duties for the unit but said she has heard the communications squadron members have been doing a good job making the existing communications system in the area operate more efficiently.
Before she goes, Spink-Morin is hoping to arrange the mailings of a few Care packages to the unit members already on duty there and also will seek donations of some telephone calling cards which the troops can always use.
Spink-Morin and the rest of the 281st members are expected to be back in Rhode Island sometime in June.