Air Force Master Sgt. Grady J. Driver has deployed to Baghdad, Iraq, to support the mission of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The service member is regularly assigned to the 342nd Training Squadron at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

Operation Iraqi Freedom is the official name given to military operations involving members of the U.S. armed forces and coalition forces participating in efforts to free and secure Iraq. Mission objectives focus on force protection, peacekeeping, stabilization, security and counter-insurgency operations as the Iraqi transitional governing bodies assume full sovereign powers to govern the peoples of Iraq.

Members from all branches of the U.S. military and multinational forces are also assisting in rebuilding Iraq’s economic and governmental infrastructure, and training and preparing Iraqi military and security forces to assume full authority and responsibility in defending and preserving Iraq’s sovereignty and independence as a democracy.

Driver is an Iraq security forces advisor has served in the military for 18 years.

He is the son of Ralph S. Driver of Verbena and Elizabeth A. Evers of Tuscaloosa and nephew of Richard C. Driver of Marbury.

His wife, Deanne, is the daughter of Delores Rasmussen of Clearwater, Fla.

The sergeant received an associate degree in 2009 from the College of the Air Force in Montgomery.