Training quarterhorses takes time, said Lt. Col. Deveon Sudduth, and the ability to pace herself is a skill she’s using during her service in Iraq.

“They each teach me patience,” Sudduth said of her horses. She deployed with the 412th Engineer Command in December as a communications training adviser for the Iraqi government.

Sudduth, 49, of Steens in northeast Mississippi, impressed her husband, Jimmie, as a soldier and a rider when she injured the back of her head after being thrown from a horse two years ago. Her wound required about 40 stitches, and he said to this day, she will not wear the helmet he bought.

“It scared me bad, but things like that don’t faze her. I guess that’s what makes her a good soldier,” said Jimmie Sudduth.

Sudduth breaks, trains and rides horses for competition, he said.

Now, she is serving her country by being a mentor and training soldiers in communications.

Though her husband is her biggest military supporter, he eagerly waits for her return home in about three months. She has two colts waiting to be trained, he said.

Sudduth started her career as an enlisted soldier and believes that has enabled her “to better guide enlisteds and young officers,” she said.

“It helped me to be a better a leader,” Sudduth said.

In July 1979, she entered the military as a full-time technician with the U.S. Army National Guard and later switched to active duty in the Air Force in 1985.

She transferred to the Mississippi Air National Guard in 1988. A promotion opportunity in August 1991 led her back to the Army as an officer with the Army Reserve.

“It got into my blood, and I didn’t want to get out,” Sudduth said about reaching a 30-year milestone of combined service this year.

“I’m thinking 31 years, but I’m not ready to retire,” she said. “My husband is ready for me to live at home for a while.”

Sudduth said Jimmie has never tried to talk her out of being in the military.

“He knows I love it,” she said.

In May 2004, Sudduth mobilized with the Mississippi Army National Guard at Camp Shelby and deployed to Ramadi, Iraq, in February 2006.

She said one of her most memorable moments in her career was seeing how things were in Iraq during her first trip to the country.

“Iraqis now talk about the hope they didn’t have before,” she said.

After returning from that deployment, she transferred back to the Army Reserve in February 2007 and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in March.

While in Vicksburg from September 2007 to December 2008, Sudduth served as a communications and information management staff officer for the 926th Engineer Brigade, which was deployed to Iraq.

Though Sudduth tours often, Jimmie Sudduth said working with the horses gives him something to do while she is away.

“It changes my whole routine,” he said.

Sudduth is a 1978 graduate McClure Academy in Jackson and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1995 from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

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Contact Tish Butts at tbutts@vicksburgpost.com