Posted on 11/27/2006 8:07:09 AM PST by MNJohnnie
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1744168/posts
Great picture of some troops homecomming posted on this thread.
Oh, he’s here!’ Strykers return to open arms
It was 32 below zero on Fort Wainwright, a 102-degree difference from Baghdad, where hundreds of soldiers with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team had been just prior to their return to Fairbanks on Saturday.
But even with foggy and icy windows on the buses that brought them in from Eielson Air Force Base, all the soldiers knew was the warm welcome of friends and family.
Before the soldiers arrived at Fort Wainwright, Col. Robert Ball, deputy commander of U.S. Army Alaska, briefed the anxious and excited crowd of family and friends.
“Go easy on them. They’re tired and a little chilly,” Ball said.
When the soldiers arrived, they lined up in formation about 50 feet in front of the crowd, with families and soldiers facing each other and loud cheers echoing throughout the large building.
“Oh, he’s here!” said Tamatha Zavodsky, jumping up to get a glimpse of her husband, Sgt. Maj. Dennis Zavodsky, in formation.
A sign on the Richardson Highway outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, greets a bus load of 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team soldiers returning from Iraq on Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006. The first plane loads of the brigade began arriving Saturday as the 3,800 troops return from their extended deployment. (AP Photo/Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Sam Harrel) Ball commended the soldiers and their families in his 37-second speech, timed by one of Zavodsky’s sons. And finally, after 16 months of being 5,620 miles and a war apart, the distance between families and soldiers closed in as they rushed into each other’s arms.
Just over 600 soldiers arrived in Fairbanks between the two flights Saturday. An additional 200 were bound for Anchorage. About 3,800 soldiers with the brigade are scheduled to arrive in Fairbanks over the next 10 days. Twenty six died during the 16-month deployment.
The brigade served the first year of its tour in northern Iraq, being based out of Mosul, and was extended four months and moved to Baghdad to help combat violence there.
Reunions between families varied Saturday between seriously romantic to boisterous and joyous. Soldiers coming home to young children sank to their knees to embrace their toddlers or cradled infants they had never met. Young couples shared long, steamy kisses. Single soldiers were introduced to their buddy’s wife and kids and promised a hot meal in the next couple days before lining up for buses to their hotel rooms or barracks.
At least two-thirds of the first flight Saturday were single soldiers, many who did not have family members waiting to greet them. The Family Readiness Groups for the battalions had prepared the single soldiers’ barracks, supplying blankets, snacks, razors and shaving cream and other comforts. And even though some families couldn’t be there in person, many across the country were breathing sighs of relief as they received word their soldiers were in Alaska.
Molly Nava and a group from the brigade Support Battalion were busy on their cell phones, calling families across the country letting them know their soldier was en route to Fairbanks.
“That they are on a plane out of Iraq, that’s all they care about,” Nava said.
In some cases, single soldiers were met by the families of other soldiers.
Zavodsky, who was on hand with two sons to greet her husband, also had been tasked with finding Capt. Jerry O’Dowd, who didn’t have any family to greet him. O’Dowd’s mother in Georgia had sent up a box of cookies to give her son. O’Dowd’s girlfriend in Savannah had sent a banner welcoming him home, hanging among the dozens of signs in the building.
U.S. Army Sgt. Nick Ramsey of the 4th Battalion 23rd Infantry, kisses his wife Devan during a homecoming celebration for soldiers with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Fort Wainwright, Alaska Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006, after serving 16 months in Iraq. (AP Photo/ Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Eric Engman) O’Dowd was pleasantly surprised when Zavodsky gave him the cookies and told him about the banner.
“Wow,” was all he said, tearing up as he looked at his mother’s handwriting on the box of cookies and walked off to find his banner.
Even families who didn’t have a soldier returning on the first flights came just to gear up for their reunions. Sue Ulibarri brought her two children Saturday. Her husband, Sgt. Maj. William Ulibarri, isn’t due in Fairbanks until later in the week.
“But this is the most exciting thing happening in Fairbanks,” she said.
Sono, did you see the ERR video coming out on Black Conservatives? Malkin had it up before.
"Inbred race"? A true conservative would never say something like that.
Do we abandon a lame man because he doesn't want to walk? Do we abandon a child when he/she does not want to learn to read? Do we abandon terminally ill person because they do not want to live? Do we abandon a people even when they do not understand freedom and liberty?
America is a great nation with a great people. We do what we do because it is the right thing to do, not because it is easy or convenient.
Well, I'm off to brave the malls again. See some of you in the Lounge tonight.
You hear anything on Ethiopia? I know it's hot.
Mexico is insane now... check out Mark in Mexico when you get a chance.
Pitiful post. We don't want "little Americans". We are offering them freedom from theocracy or dictatorship. Do you believe Arabs are so inferior that they cannot grasp freedom? You have a pretty low opinion of people that putting their life on the line on a daily basis for a chance to escape misery.
How many of the elected reps or their family members have died in Iraq. How many of our politicians would risk their life for anything?
GO ARMY!!!! BEAT NAVY!!!!
re: WABC newsbreak
Lincoln Memorial? Shut down? Anthrax?
Oh shoot, terrorists robocall Iraqis now? Dang...
(SICK) 'All My Children' introducing transgender character
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1744655/posts
FBI: Suspicious package found at Lincoln Memorial.
I love watching the WestPoint Cadets march into the Stadium.
We that are charged with getting the message out to the DBM are doing our job with great zeal and much frustration.
The disconnect comes with the DBM.
They are the ones feeding a decidedly negative and patently false picture of what is really happening in Iraq to the "sheeple"...despite thousands of stories to the contrary.
I know the good news is there...I did 79 stories, took 3.2 gb worth of pics and nearly 30 hours of video in my year there.
This one is NOT the Presidents fault.
Authorities closed the Lincoln Memorial on Monday after a suspicious liquid was found in a bathroom, authorities said. While investigating the liquid, authorities received a call about a suspicious package, District of Columbia fire spokesman Alan Etter said. They are investigating both.
Good... I'll just hold on to the seven different bios of Barack Hussein Obama a little longer then.
OMG it's a CIVIL WAR!!! NYPD are redeploying to Vermont!
You have no clue who I am ...where I've been or what I've seen, you moron. I stopped listening to talk show dolts over a year ago when it hit my thick irish noggin they are just entertainers ...nothing more ... all strugging for ratings and saying what their handlers wanted them to say.
I've never voted for a dimocrat in my life and don't plan to take up that disgusting vice as long as air keeps moving through my lungs.
Seems the arrogant infallability has been nail-gunned to your fat frontal lobe in that you buy the Tony Snow-job that we are making a difference in Iraq. Those people cannot wait for us to get the hell out of their land and would sooner see us all burn. Our mission was accomplished 48 hours after we chased the "Elite Republican Guard" out of their uniforms.
Had we actually done this right - the towns and villages housing and hiding the insurgants would be rubble right now. Instead they have become ambush points for our brave soldiers to get smoke checked from.
The Sunni Triangle would be nothing but a smudge in the sand.
Don't vomit your bilious "Mission Accomplished" line at me .... when Iran is running out of Iraq with their tails between their legs ... will this be anything but the cluster it is now.
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