Posted on 09/28/2003 6:14:18 PM PDT by Pokey78
Like all major airports, Baltimore-Washington International is used to emotional scenes. But it can have witnessed few in recent years such as the encounters of yesterday, as nearly 200 American soldiers, still in their desert fatigues, returned home for a brief break from Iraq.
The opening of the swing doors from the Customs hall was greeted by loud intakes of breath and cheers. Then the spell was broken and a young woman with a six-month-old baby charged past the barrier and fell into an oncoming soldier's arms.
Sergeant Corey Rieken was seeing his boy for the first time. He left for Iraq in February, a month before Cole was born. Since then, his wife Anna has been at his home base, Fort Bragg, watching the news every day and willing her man home.
Bearing unquestionably the broadest beam in Baltimore, Sgt Rieken briefly put his emotions to one side and insisted he would be glad to go back - a fortnight today. "It feels good," he said in one of the day's many understatements.
"It will be a good break and we all need it. If I was here any longer, though, it would be hard to go back."
All around him, soldiers queued for telephones and hugged their friends at the start of their two weeks' leave. Undercutting the joy, however, were concerns that all in Iraq was not going to plan.
"We're the lucky ones," said Anna Rieken. "But most of the wives are all crabby and upset because they thought it would be over sooner. The army has told us about five dates for coming home, but they keep putting it back."
Just over 600 soldiers - including 193 yesterday - have flown to Baltimore since the new programme of daily flights home began. They have been billed as the first "r and r" flights since the Vietnam war. With the Democrats making much play of the "V" word, it is a slightly sensitive comparison.
Richard Rupe, 50, who served in the navy in south-east Asia in the early 1970s, was waiting with his wife yesterday for their adopted son, who has been away for almost a year after going straight from Afghanistan to Iraq.
"This is the third time now he has changed his rotation," said Mr Rupe. "I hope they hurry up and call up the reserves and give these guys a break. We're obviously apprehensive. Everything you hear on the news - it's all a concern.
"I think I'd feel a bit better if the government was forthright about all the problems they're having. When I was serving, it was Agent Orange that we didn't know about. It took 30 years to come out about Agent Orange. I hope these guys don't have to wait so long to be told what is really happening."
The Rupes, from a small town in New York state, come across as heartland Republicans. Although President George W Bush's ratings are falling, he is not losing their support yet - but they will not be his indefinitely.
"The nation will be patient a bit longer," said Mr Rupe, a driver. "I do think it was necessary to take care of Saddam.
"But we should have gone with half a million men and a broad coalition as we did last time [in the 1991 Gulf war]. I've always been a 'my country, right or wrong, guy' but in the next few months I need to see some concrete steps to start winding things down."
Shannon Cartee, 23, has been in Iraq since April. "Everyone was so excited on the plane," he said. "To come back to US soil and see green grass and all. I am just going to relax and watch a lot of college football."
Asked about conditions in Iraq, he faltered. "I know . . . but I would rather not say. It could be worse . . ."
Then he continued: "We're not fighting an enemy that says, 'Here I am!' They hide behind walls. Every time you go out, you have to watch out. My parents are so excited at seeing me. They say that seeing us on the news reminds them of a mini-Vietnam."
So will they want to return?
Joe Burlas, the army spokesman, says they will. But will their families be happy? That's what Mr Bush needs to know.
There are two attributed quotations in this piece describing how the unrelentingly false picture presented by the medis is demoralizing the families of our soldiers.
If all you know is your own few square miles and the attacks you've suffered without seeing anything else, things could look pretty bleak-- why aren't they being given the big picture?
Undercutting the joy, however, were concerns that all in Iraq was not going to plan.
Objective journalism, that.
not nice to make a 41 year old man tear up and sniffle, pokey
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