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.
Hey all! Just popping in to let you know I aint dead. My PC is almost, so I won't be online today. Hopeful;ly, I will see you tomorrow.
Is he with the Pope?
There's a huge agenda going on... even within Fox. Talk radio is moving up and the press is going down, not quick enough for me though. Most conservatives work for a living so they can't protest the press... we only got to freep the NYTs twice. It seems a lot of us have to take off and make a huge trip to D.C.. The MSM has seeped into the brains of the best of them... they have no clue.
BTW, they are kicking *ss and taking names in the Stan and Iraq.
We need our own channel.
Screaming your emotion based feelings louder does not change your feelings to facts. UNLIKE you I actually know what I am talking about. Been there done that got the t shirt. Quit putting your hands over you ears and screaming "
no, no, no, no, no and actually LEARN even ONE fact about Iraq. Simply screaming your emotional based hysteria louder and louder will does NOT hide your total ignorance on this topic.
Has it ever crossed any of your minds that muslem arabs don't see that as a win win?
They don't think or even process like we do....
You have to understand that our youth are being brainwashed by the public school system and even the universities. They are getting a one sides education and taught what to think, not how to think.
One of my Thanksgiving guests is a 2nd year law student at the Univ. of WA. She was looking at a sports page in my kitchen, and I handed her a WSJ editorial about the Muslim problem in the Netherlands. Later, I asked her what she thought of the article and she said, "Well, one of my professors says that all the bad press that we hear about Muslims isn't true, that most Muslims are really peaceable."
"They don't think or even process like we do...."
And you know this because???
GO ARMY BEAT NAVY!!!!!! (:
Putin's family goes back to Ivan himself. A friend of mine (90 years old, who I lunch with on City Island), is part of that crew born in 1916 and 17 who's lucky to be alive... his family fled to China (yeah, I know). He, along with others, gave me the whole rundown re: Russia and the players.
I don't know who you are either, but I do think we CAN turn this around with good-ol-stick-to-itiveness, the same fortitude we stayed in Germany and Japan. The tactics should be left to the generals since I am not qualified--and I doubt you are--to decide which cities should be smoking rubble and which not. Right now, I vote for Teheran myself...but I'll let the President and his staff decide that.
Do you have a link? I can't find anything about this on the news sites....Yikes!
Has it crossed your mind that it might take a little while for them to handle it?
That exact same argument was made about Orientals. The Japanese disproved it.
Well let's here it from those 24,970,000 Iraqis condeming the other 30,000. When we all see the towers go down & thousands cheering that it happened sure tells me a thing or two. If this is a distortion on my part then blame the media & the administration.
It wasn't even that Pubbies couldn't get the face time, they didn't even try to constantly push and the WH had to answer every lie, rumor and innuendo from unnamed sources/leaks daily. No spine on the hill. Maybe they'll get hungry now... I hope.
I did not know that, but it would explain a lot. I believe Putin has always been a megalomaniac, and that would explain his visions of grandeur.
Oh Dear ... You're being Insensitive!
/sarcasm
It is not the product of a rational adult mind to cling with arrogant self regard to emotion based opinions when EVERYONE is showing you that you know utterly NOTHING on the topic. Instead of screaming your emotion based opinions and intellectually vacuous slogans louder and louder, maybe you should shut up and actually LEARN something on Iraq.
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