Posted on 02/27/2005 6:34:31 PM PST by mdittmar
CAMP PENDLETON – Rise Bourland ran toward more than 200 Marines and sailors as they came marching down a road in "boonie" hats and digital desert camouflage.
"They all look the same," said Bourland, of Seal Beach, after she found her son, James Bourland, a Navy medic.
"I was so scared I wouldn't find him," she said, crying and holding her son.
The reunion was at Camp Pendleton yesterday, when families and friends welcomed the last batch of Marines and sailors of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which just completed a nine-month deployment to Iraq.
Shrapnel wounds on James Bourland's left forearm and wrist that left a tinge of numbness are a reminder of a street-to-street battle in the holy city of Najaf.Seven Marines were killed and more than 100 were wounded during the deployment.
Two weeks after the unit arrived there in August, the 11th MEU helped defeat cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia in the fierce street battle, which lasted three weeks.
Three months later, the Marines helped take control of Fallujah, another rebel stronghold. They also participated in hundreds of reconstruction projects in Najaf and Qadisiyah worth more than $35 million, which included renovating schools and building new marketplaces.
Every time the 25-year-old medic was unable to save a dying Marine or when his Humvee survived an ambush, Bourland's father, Larry Bourland, heard about it in their regular monthly phone conversations.
"If I could have changed places with him, I would. It's so hard knowing what he's experiencing and not being alongside him," said Larry Bourland, who was himself wounded as a Navy radio operator during the Vietnam War.
James Bourland said that after a one-month vacation with his family, he will be back at Camp Pendleton and preparing for his next nine-month deployment to Iraq.
He won't miss the war, but he will miss his "brothers," he said.
"The camaraderie out there is amazing," James Bourland said. "I knew the littlest things about the guys and they knew the littlest things about me."
Bourland said his thoughts drift to Lance Cpl. Nicholas H. Anderson, who was killed in November during a night patrol near Mahmudiyah when his Humvee rolled over. Bourland looked for Anderson's parents yesterday, but could not find them.
First Sgt. David Zhorne said Anderson's parents did not come to the homecoming, but they plan on meeting the Marines later this month.
The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit includes elements of the Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 166, Service Support Group 11 and a command element.
About 350 Marines and sailors from the 11th MEU returned to Camp Pendleton last week, along with more troops from other units. The homecomings signal a major troop rotation, with Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., replacing most Camp Pendleton-based units in Iraq.
More than 230 members of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing are scheduled to return to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station today.
Zhorne, who came home two weeks ahead of his unit, said the newly arrived Marines are probably going through "sensory overload."
"Everything out there was brown and desert, and here, everything's green and your family is right on you," he said. "They need to ease into things."
Capt. Steven Wallace of Oceanside, holding his 9-month-old daughter, said he doesn't need to ease into civilian life.
"I'm already adjusted," he said, looking down at his wife, Jill, beaming in his arms.
The last time Wallace saw his daughter, Eleanor, she was a tiny wisp of a baby, weighing less than 5 pounds.
Jill Wallace's water broke nearly eight months into her pregnancy as she waved goodbye to her husband at the base's Del Mar boat basin May 26. A week later, she gave birth to Eleanor, prematurely born at 32 weeks. Steven returned for a month to be with his wife and daughter, then left for Kuwait in July.
The family of three plans on vacationing in Maui for a month, "way far from responsibilities," Jill Wallace said. The couple do not know when his next deployment will be.
That name sounds like his famly immigrated here from Africa direct.
He has done his family proud!
Joy!
Thank YOU, Jesus!
That's a great photo. He looks so happy.
They may have removed a highly trained biologist who would have prepared the package that would have been slipped into the water supply of Chicago.
They may have neutralized the cell that was training to blow up a freighter loaded with fertilizer under the Golden Gate Bridge, or detonate a nuclear device in the New Orleans harbor, or explode a Ryder truck loaded with dynamite on a dam above a Midwestern city, ....
And thank you!!!
North County Times
Home at last: Long journey to Iraq and back ends Saturday night at Camp Pendleton
"... "It's carpet between my toes. It's a real bathroom ---- the little things," said Capt. Kimberly Johnson, 29, of Carlsbad a bit earlier about what she had in mind. "Sure it's about the big stuff ---- like family and everything ---- but it's all the little things."
"Sgt. Sevara Rodriquez, 23, of San Antonio, said being home would mean letting her hair down and being alone for the first time in nine months.
"I wanna buy some flowers and just smell 'em," Rodriquez said.
For Corpsman Craig DeGarmo, home was a little boy.
"I'm looking forward to holding my son for the first time," said DeGarmo, whose wife Gail gave birth to their 3-month old son Christopher while he was away. "He's gonna cry a lot, I bet."
Navy Corpsman Bridgette Stone, 25, originally of the Philippines, said she was just looking forward to getting back to marry her Marine sweetheart.
"I can't think straight," said the bouncy brunette. "I'm so excited I can't sleep..."
"...---- their was a flurry of excitement as the plane descended toward snowy Bangor, where it would stop for fuel.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've just landed in the United States of America," a stewardess announced at about 9 a.m. East Coast time.
"Yeeahhh!!!" and "Oorrahh!" erupted throughout the plane, followed by clapping and cheers.
As the troops left the plane, they were greeted warmly by about 30 Bangor residents who welcomed them home with gantlet of handshakes and hugs.
"That first woman hugged me," said Lance Cpl. Jason Hougan, 22, of Long Beach, Miss., still blushing a bit as he shook more hands of veterans and Bangorians.
"It was weird," he said, collecting himself and looking a bit shocked. "I haven't been hugged in a long time."
The principal hugger ---- 90 year-old Kay Lebowitz ---- led the group of Maine Troop Greeters who invited the Marines and sailors into their "welcome room" for cookies donated by Sam's Club and to make phone calls to loved ones on dozens of cell phones donated by Unicel.
"We just want them to know we love them and that we're thankful for all they've done." she said, tearing up a bit as she returned to embrace a surprised-looking Marine who lingered over her grandmotherly hug..."
"...The moment they had waited so long for ---- sight of their home base, where family or friends or freedom awaited them ---- came softly as the Marines hung on the seat back in front of them to read gas prices, point out favorite fast-food joints or comment about how wet and green everything seemed.
Stopping to turn in the weapons they had by their sides or at the ready since June, the fact of having arrived started to set in.
"Oh my God, they brought a band," said Staff Sgt. Pedro Aquino, 28, of Hawthorne, as they rounded a corner and headed into a flood-lit field where cheering family members were nearly drowned out by a Marine marching band.
With a brief formation to dismiss the stunned-looking troops, Lt. Col. Apicella released them to the crowd.
"Welcome home," he said. "Congratulations on a job well done! ..."
That being said, I'm sure glad our guys made it back to their holy base.
There more hole'ie than "holy" when are guys get done;)
Pay no attention to the old media,those our military have freed don't.
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