"All-American" homecoming

Soldiers Magazine, July, 2004 by Heike Hasenauer

For weeks, charter aircraft touched down at Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, N.C., bringing hundreds of 82nd Airborne Division Soldiers back into the waiting arms of loved ones who hadn't seen them in nearly a year.

Family and friends flooded the airfield's Green Ramp, the main Army terminal on the base, transforming it into a sea of color with vibrant foil balloons, flower bouquets and homemade welcome-home posters.

"Half of my heart was missing while you were gone," one of the posters read. "Now I'm whole again." Another carried the much broader message: "Welcome home heroes of the 82nd."

Inside the terminal, little girls dressed in red, white and blue put finishing touches of color and glitter on a poster to welcome home a relative. A little boy dressed in pint-sized camouflage fatigues stood close to a little girl, perhaps his sister, waiting patiently for a loved one. And out in the unseasonably warm March morning, 1LT Daniel Galloway held a bouquet of roses, "one for each month we've been apart," he said about the absence of his wife, CPT Tammy Galloway, a member of the 82nd Abn. Div. staff.

She deployed to Iraq while he was in Iraq with the 3rd Battalion, 325th Infantry Regiment.

Most of the 82nd Abn. Div.--12,000 of its 15,000 troops--had deployed to Iraq in increments, said division spokeswoman MSG Pam Smith. Additionally, 14,000 Soldiers from the XVIII Airborne Corps and 500 from the U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg had also deployed to Iraq.

By the end of May the 82nd Abn. Div.'s 1st Bde., the last brigade to deploy to Iraq, in January 2004, had returned home, just in time to participate in the post's traditional All-American Week--weeklong events, including a division run, division review, picnics and sporting events. An airfield-seizure demonstration involving 600 paratroopers jumping onto an airfield at Fort Bragg, and a memorial service at the 82nd Abn. Div. Memorial Museum to honor Soldiers who were killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, were also on the schedule, Smith said.

Heartwarming homecomings were repeated numerous times at Army posts across America and at U.S. installations overseas, as the largest military rotation of troops since World War II was under way in March and April. Collectively, some 250,000 service members were either coming home or deploying, Army officials reported.

In long-anticipated moments of joy, many focused not on the uncertainty and anguish of the past year, but on their immediate plans for an upcoming three-week block of leave and the opportunity to get reacquainted with their families.

"When the world dials 911," said Fayetteville's Cumberland County executive George Breece, "it's the Soldiers at Fort Bragg who answer the call. We have people going and coming all the time. And every day is a welcome-home day; you can see it in the eyes of military spouses and children."

Inevitably, even with the local community's understanding and support, the war will creep into the lives of recently returned Soldiers, whether they choose to think about it or not. Many, after all, witnessed untold atrocities, among those the brutal deaths of comrades and friends.

Among the first returning 82nd Abn. Div. Soldiers from Iraq was Chaplain (MAJ) Scott Carson of the division's 3rd Bde., who was assigned near the city of Fallujah, a hotbed of guerilla activity about 35 miles west of Baghdad. Earlier, he'd been deployed to Afghanistan for six months.

"We were well prepared for the mission," said Carson. "We had casualties, but they were few because of the training we had." Thirty-six Soldiers of the 82nd Abn. Div. had been killed at the time this article was written--13 were part of the 3rd Bde., which had other units attached to it. Some 160 Soldiers in the division were wounded.

Reintegration Training

Soldiers receive a reintegration briefing before they return from Iraq, Carson said. Two to three days after they get back to Fort Bragg, they undergo additional reintegration training.

Carson presents a "normalization" briefing to explain that significant emotional issues are normal, he said. He also describes symptoms that indicate it's time to seek professional help.

SGM Jose Rodriguez of Headquarters and HQ's Company, 82nd Abn. Div., returned from his fourth "real-world" deployment, having served in the Gulf during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

"On previous deployments, I didn't see much action," said Rodriguez, an intelligence specialist. "On this one, I saw it every day. I either saw an ambush, was in one or responded to direct fire, I saw everything--people blown up, people dying."

Rodriguez admitted he was having some difficulty sleeping. "The other night I woke up screaming in bed. I was dreaming about being attacked by mortars, I didn't tell my wife that though."

His priorities are to "get back into a routine with my family," Rodriguez said, "and get myself back into the normal life I lived before. I want to get back to school, to earn my second Bachelor's degree, this one in intelligence studies."