Brigade pride,joy on display(PICS)

The News Tribune ^ | October 12th, 2007 | MICHAEL GILBERT

[mdittmar]

Emotional ceremony officially welcomes Stryker soldiers home

The soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division got their formal welcome home Thursday at Fort Lewis in an emotional ceremony that saw dozens of their wounded rejoin the ranks, and seven of their heroes decorated for valor – one of them posthumously.

“I am as proud of these soldiers in front of you as anything I’ve been associated with in my life,” their commander, Col. Stephen Townsend, told several thousand friends and family members who attended Thursday’s celebration at Gray Army Airfield.

“I know you all are just as proud of them.”

Nearly all the brigade’s 3,800 or so soldiers are now home from what began in June 2006 as a yearlong return to familiar territory – Mosul in northern Iraq. But then they were sent south to Baghdad, extended to 15 months and employed as a strike force in the country’s toughest areas.

Townsend recalled some of those places: Ghaziliyah, Ameriyah, Haifa Street and Doura in the capital. Diwaniya, Karbala and Najaf in the south. And then Baqouba, where first a battalion, and later the entire brigade, pushed al-Qaida in Iraq from what it called the capital of its new Islamic republic.

Those are “only a few of the battlegrounds since June of last year where the warriors of the Arrowhead Stryker Brigade have fought and bled. There is no doubt these Stryker soldiers and airmen before you have moved further, faster and fought harder than any other unit in our Army today,” their commander said.

The brigade lost 48 soldiers – they were remembered in a ceremony Wednesday to unveil a monument at brigade headquarters – and suffered some 700 wounded.

Thursday’s highlight came when Town-send called out to the troops in formation in front of him: “Units! Retrieve your wounded!”

Dozens of soldiers streamed out of the audience – some in wheelchairs, some with the aid of crutches or canes – and took their place among their comrades. They were greeted with a sustained standing ovation.

Sgt. Michael Kohler, 23, said it was a great feeling to be reunited with the men he had to leave after he was wounded Jan. 27. A blast from an explosively formed penetrator nearly took off his left leg and might still force him out of the Army.

He made the trek out to join the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment on crutches, his leg heavily bandaged.

“It’s a heavy burden to carry to be back here while all the soldiers you’re in charge of are still in the fight,” he said.

His six months in Iraq taught him one thing: The enemy had gotten smarter. During his first deployment, with the 3rd Brigade in 2003-04, the insurgency didn’t have the capability to blow up a Stryker, he said. This time, it was a real threat.

Family members – of those wounded and those unhurt alike – said they were moved by the moment.

“I just thought, ‘Thank you, God,’” said Marie Rosemberg of Port au Prince, Haiti, who flew in to welcome home her son, Sgt. Ducarmel Francois. “Thank you because he is returning the way he went. But also my heart goes out to the others.”

Cathy Weber of Cincinnati was here with a contingent from her hometown, even though her son, Cpl. Robert Weber, was among those who didn’t come back. The 22-year-old artilleryman was killed Sept. 30, 2006, in a Humvee rollover near Qayyarah.

She wanted to be at Fort Lewis for the men in her son’s unit, the 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment.

“We’re here to show them our support, and let them know they’re part of our family now, too,” she said.

She and Weber’s father, Marty, and other friends and family members wore white sweatshirts bearing his name and picture, with an inscription on the back: “All gave some, and some gave all.”

The brigade awarded the Silver Star – the nation’s third-highest award for combat valor – to seven soldiers. One, Sgt. Jason Harkins, was awarded posthumously for his actions March 17 in Baqouba. Despite being wounded in an ambush, he organized a quick perimeter to outgun the attackers and evacuated three wounded soldiers.

Harkins, 25, of Clarksville, Ga., would later be killed with five other soldiers and a Russian photojournalist when a deep-buried bomb exploded beneath their Stryker May 6 in Baqouba.

Also receiving the Silver Star were Staff Sgt. Mark Grover, Staff Sgt. Shawn McGuire, Staff Sgt. David Plush, Sgt. Steven Peters, Spc. Gildardo Cebreros and Spc. Curtis Lundren.

All but McGuire are with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, the Stryker battalion that was sent to Baqouba in March. And all were decorated for their actions in Baqouba.

McGuire is with the 18th Engineer Company. The 32-year-old Spanaway resident also has been awarded the Purple Heart four times – three for wounds on this deployment, and once for the earlier 3rd Brigade tour in 2003-04.

“At Madigan (Army Medical Center) they call me the luckiest unlucky guy in the Army,” he said after Thursday’s ceremony.

At Baqouba, he said, he and the others who were among the first to arrive in March encountered a virtual ghost town populated only by insurgents. By the time the rest of the brigade moved in, Iraqi civilians streamed back into the city on foot, carrying their belongings, over the course of several days.

Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, the deputy commander of Fort Lewis and I Corps, told the troops they “saved and changed peoples’ lives and helped give a nation a chance to live free.”

“You … have much to be proud of. All of Team Lewis is certainly proud of the Arrowhead Brigade, and your tremendous success in Iraq. Therefore it is with pride and joy that I say officially, welcome home.”

To see video from the ceremony, go to www.theolympian.com.

3RD Brigade timeline

June 2006: Begins its second deployment to Iraq.

Aug. 5: Takes over in Mosul – the same territory it covered in the 2003-04 deployment.

Dec. 9: Treks 250 miles south and spends next six months in “the worst enemy strongholds in Baghdad.”

January 2007: 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment drives Sunni insurgents from Haifa Street area of downtown Baghdad.

Jan. 28: 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment moves 100 miles south from Baghdad on short notice to secure a downed helicopter near Najaf. There troops fight 18 hours with entrenched Shiite “Soldiers of Heaven,” killing 250 and capturing another 400. Iraqi authorities later said the group planned to attack an upcoming pilgrimage.

March: 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment is sent 40 miles to Baqouba and engages in heavy fighting against al-Qaida in Iraq, which had proclaimed the Diyala province center as the capital of its Islamic Republic of Iraq.

March: 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment is sent 115 miles south of Baghdad to Diwaniya to confront Shiite militiamen in the center of the city. After two weeks of fighting, returns the job to Iraqi security forces.

April 2007: Brigade is ordered to stay in Iraq an additional three months as part of the U.S. “surge.”

June 19: Brigade moves to Baqouba and leads Operation Arrowhead Ripper, to clear al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents from the area. Troops kill or capture hundreds of enemy fighters and clear dozens of bombs and booby-trapped houses. Brigade officials launch humanitarian relief.

September-October: Redeploys to Fort Lewis.

[mdittmar]

Welcome Home and Thank You

DEAN J. KOEPFLER/The News Tribune A.J. Tong of Issaquah, who lost his right leg below the knee to an explosively formed penetrator Aug. 18 in Iraq, rejoined his 3rd Stryker Brigade unit Thursday in a ceremony at Fort Lewis. Afterward he posed for photos with his sister Katie, right, as his father, John, left, waited.

Dean J. Koepfler The News Tribune Mt. Rainier’s cloud-covered peak provides a backdrop Thursday at the 3rd Brigade’s welcome-home ceremony. Its soldiers served in 2006 and 2007 in many of Iraq’s harshest combat areas.

Dean J. Koepfler The News Tribune Capt. Brendon Dever shares an emotional embrace with wife Emily as niece Hunter Jackson waits Thursday in the 3rd Brigade’s welcome home to Fort Lewis. The brigade lost 48 soldiers and suffered some 700 wounded in its second Iraq tour.

[MarineBrat]

Welcome home heroes!

[eureka!]

God bless our troops and their families and may the Lord comfort those family of those that have fallen. D*mn the enemies, their supporters and enablers...

[mdittmar]

Ping!

[South40]

[RightOnline]

God bless all of these troops........we owe them all SO much.

I am very proud to point out that my oldest son, a Stryker platoon leader from Ft. Lewis (same outfit) who went through all this and just returned a few weeks ago after 15 months....was the only platoon leader to bring back EVERY one of his troops unscathed; nary a Purple Heart among them.

It’s nothing short of miraculous, especially when you peruse where they were the whole time. It’s a true testament to the power of prayer......and to my son’s outstanding combat leadership.

I can’t express in words how proud I am that he and his guys served with such honor, and that he brought them all back whole to rejoin their families and other loved ones. That, my friends, is a professional.

He is FReeper “Future Snake Eater”. I love him as my son, but he has earned the respect of all of us.

[mdittmar]

Tell him I said Thank You,and Thank You too.

[SandRat]

WOO-HOO!!!!

[RightOnline]

I think you just did.......thank you.