Soldiers expected to return
Nearly 300 soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team were expected to return to Fort Wainwright overnight from Iraq.
About 270 soldiers from the brigade’s advanced team returned on June 20. Today’s flight is the first group of the main body of soldiers to arrive back from a yearlong deployment. At least 10 such flights will return to Fort Wainwright in late July and early August, and the trail body will follow when all others have left the Middle East.
The bulk of the soldiers who were to return today are from the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. Before deploying, the 4-23 was located at Fort Richardson in Anchorage. The unit is being moved to Fort Wainwright as soldiers return.
The roughly 3,200 members of the brigade have been in Iraq since August and been stationed around Mosul in northern Iraq and near the Syrian border. The soldiers of the brigade conducted security operations and provided training for the Iraqi Army and Iraqi security forces.
Emotions run high for families already weary after year apart
Why?
That’s the question spouses and family members of the soldiers the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team were asking Thursday when it was announced the unit’s stay in Iraq was extended.
“I want to know why? When? Where?” Samantha Gouldner said outside her Fort Wainwright home Thursday night. “I just want to scream.”
“All of us are wanting answers,” her friend Jennifer Thomas said. “That’s the hardest part with having questions is having no answers to them.”
Commanders at Fort Wainwright and with U.S. Army Alaska said the decision to extend the brigade’s deployment came quickly, with news of a possible extension reaching officials late Tuesday and Wednesday. Once the decision was official Thursday, commanders began tackling the issues surrounding the extension.
The deputy commander of U.S. Army Alaska, Col. Robert Ball, said Thursday that officials were meeting with Family Readiness Group leaders to put more support in place for the families. One example Ball gave is the need for more respite child care as weary parents face more months alone.
“They were sort of in the last lap,” Ball said. “They’re tired. They need a break. They were hanging in there. Now that’s been pulled out from under them.”
Ball said officials also have to examine housing issues. The extension will likely cause an overlap of Stryker families that are now extending their stay in Alaska, while the replacements for those soldiers previously scheduled will begin arriving.
“We’re spinning, trying to get those answers,” Ball said.
So were many family members, as their emotions Thursday were still raw. Thomas’ first reaction Thursday morning was to rip down a “Welcome Home” sign hanging outside her home, tears streaming down her face. She replaced similar signs on her vehicles with signs saying “They’ve done their job, bring them home.”
Thomas and Gouldner had made T-shirts with their husbands’ photos on them for them and their children to wear when the men returned. Thomas had bought the ingredients for her husband’s favorite cake, German chocolate.
Gouldner had to listen to a phone message early Thursday from her husband, Sgt. Ken Gouldner, as he excitedly said he couldn’t wait to see her and their two sons in just a few days.
“I’m listening to this and thinking, ‘He doesn’t even know,’” she said.
The first trickles of news about a possible redeployment began Wednesday as The Associated Press reported that President Bush said Stryker Brigades would be sent to Baghdad. Local media carried the national reports, and Thomas said that is how most families first had an inkling there might be an extension.
“It’s just amazing that the media could’ve found out before us,” Thomas said.
Extension could last 4 months
The Defense Department and military commanders announced Thursday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved an extension of tour for the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, which has been in Iraq for nearly a year and was in the midst of having soldiers return to Alaska.
Rumsfeld approved an extension of up to four months but made no mention of the brigade’s destination in Iraq.
“I know this news is not easy for our families to hear,” said brigade commander Col. Michael Shields at a video conference from Mosul on Thursday.
The news comes as the 172nd began returning to Alaska after a nearly yearlong deployment. About 270 soldiers that were part of an advance team arrived in Fairbanks in June. Another 200 soldiers arrived from Iraq on Tuesday morning. The rest of the nearly 4,000 soldiers were scheduled to return later this week and in early August.
Shields said he and other commanders are determining how many of the soldiers that have arrived in Alaska will be ordered to return to Iraq. He said he has yet to receive details about the brigade’s mission during its extension or where it will be located.
“This is a temporary measure to create a more secure environment in Iraq,” Shields said. The duration of the extension, he said, will be determined by events on the ground.
The extension is in response to President Bush’s announcement earlier this week that the United States would be sending additional forces into Baghdad to combat increasing violence.
During its deployment in Iraq, the 172nd has been in the northern province of Nineveh, which includes the cities of Mosul and Tal Afar. The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infinity Division from Fort Lewis, Wash., was slated to replace the Alaska brigade. It’s unclear if the 172nd would stay in Mosul while the 3/2 went to Baghdad, or if the 3/2, which has already begun arriving in Iraq, would take over operations in Mosul while the 172nd completed its extension in Baghdad or elsewhere in the country.
Shields and other commanders said the brigade was chosen to stay because of its successes in the last year.
“If there is a brigade able to turn on a dime, it’s this brigade,” said Lt. Col. Greg Parrish, deputy commander of the 172nd.
Schools making adjustments in light of longer deployment
With news that the nearly 4,000 members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade will be staying in Iraq for up to four more months, the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District is bracing for what could be a tumultuous first few months of school.
Superintendent of Schools Ann Shortt said her team is already scrambling getting ready for school to start–making enrollment projections and assigning teachers.
With the continued deployment, she said, “It makes it very difficult for us to anticipate all the things we will need to do.”
Shortt said the new deployment schedule will certainly affect enrollment numbers, which in turn will affect the amount of money the school district gets from the state. The problem is, the district doesn’t really know how the continued deployment will affect student numbers at schools like Arctic Light Elementary or Lathrop High School, which have high percentages of military students.
The school district made its initial enrollment projections for this year with the assumption that the Stryker Brigade soldiers would be coming home, said Mike Fisher, a member of the team who put together those projections.
Each year the school district assigns teachers to specific schools based on predicted enrollment. Then, as the first few weeks of school progress, a team evaluates actual enrollment numbers and reassigns teachers or hires new ones as needed.
It’s a process that takes place every fall. But this year, Fisher said, the district could see some drastic swings due to the extended deployment.
Army expands resources to help Stryker families
Fort Wainwright has opened the Family Assistance Center on post to support families as they make arrangements for the extension of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s tour in Iraq.
The Army said spouses and family have several issues to tackle because of the deployment, such as nonrefundable airline tickets, powers of attorney that expire in the next couple of weeks, mental health issues and moving concerns. The Family Assistance Center is open to help the families deal with these and other problems. Spouses can got the center for questions about housing, transportation, staff judge advocate, finance, Army Community Service, community mental health and any other section on post.
Officials have set up a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week telephone line. Experts will be available from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday.
The center is located in the welcome center, Building 3401. The phone number is 353-4458 or (800) 352-9013 outside Fairbanks.
Senators back move by Pentagon
WASHINGTON–Alaska’s congressional delegation offered general support this week for the Pentagon’s decision to delay the return of Fort Wainwright’s Stryker brigade from Iraq while also acknowledging the disappointment felt by families and friends.
One candidate for Congress, though, said the delegation’s response has been too late and too accommodating.
The military’s decision Thursday to delay the return came after some members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team had already left Iraq. The majority had been scheduled to arrive in the next few days and early next month.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski spoke with television reporters in Alaska shortly after receiving official confirmation of the delay on Thursday.
“I can’t imagine the disappointment that the families must be feeling right now,” she began. She noted that she had scheduled a visit to Fairbanks in mid-August to help celebrate the return.
“We do look forward to the time when we can celebrate and, unfortunately, it’s going to be a little bit longer,” she said.
Both she and Sen. Ted Stevens said the delay recognizes the impressive performance of the Stryker brigade troops, most of whom are based at Fort Wainwright.
“Its use of the Stryker system has been phenomenal,” Stevens said in a statement relayed by his staff Friday.
“In the process of withdrawing thousands of troops from Iraq but increasing forces in Baghdad, the need for an experienced Stryker brigade is obvious.”
President Bush said earlier this week that the additional troops are needed to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad.
Rep. Don Young believes it’s inappropriate to offer much commentary on administration actions in time of war, said his spokeswoman, Meredith Kenny.
“However, Rep. Young hopes that the administration has weighed the future consequences of this difficult decision, its impact on troop morale and future enlistment numbers,” she said Friday. “He will continue to monitor the situation closely and continue to keep the interests of his Alaskan soldiers in mind.”
Anguished family members in Fairbanks expressed their outrage Thursday. Even as they ripped down “Welcome Home” signs, they endured voicemail messages from excited spouses in Iraq who hadn’t yet learned of the delay.
Diane Benson, a Democratic candidate for Young’s U.S. House seat, issued a news release Friday condemning Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation, and Young in particular, for not standing up for the delayed soldiers.
August 2006
Airline offers refunds to Stryker families
Alaska Airlines will refund tickets to customers whose travel plans have been delayed as a result of the extended deployment of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Iraq.
Officials said the airline’s policy is to refund tickets for family members and friends who planned to travel to Alaska to greet returning troops.
Delta and Northwest airlines officials contacted Tuesday weren’t able to immediately respond to the dilemma being suffered by many Stryker family members who purchased nonrefundable tickets to greet the returning soldiers or for vacations planned shortly after their return.
Neither airline executive contacted on the East Coast was clearly aware of the extended Stryker deployment in Iraq and its effects on family members awaiting their soldier’s return.
About 270 of the brigade’s advance team returned to Fairbanks in June and another 200 returned last week. More than 3,000 more were slated to return this week and next before their yearlong deployment was extended.
Comments posted on a strykernews.com bulletin board indicated that a number of Stryker family members were contacting various airlines to get refunds. Most often they were assured that a refund would be realized if they brought in a copy of their relative’s military orders.
Center eases redeployment blues
Welcome home signs still line the main road on Fort Wainwright, though certainly not as many as crowded the fences the last few weeks, before it was announced the Stryker Brigade would not be coming home as early as planned.
The families on base have been coming to terms with the news and gradually taking the signs down.
“The closure (for families) is going and taking down that sign, folding it up and putting it away until their soldiers come home later,” Lisa Kroll said. Kroll’s husband was one of the troops in the brigade who came home almost a month ago and is now facing the prospect of returning to Iraq.
Now that the initial shock is passing, the families of Stryker soldiers are having to deal with a wide range of emotional and logistical problems as they adjust to the new deployment timetable. The Army has set up a Family Assistance Center on Fort Wainwright to help ease a few of those problems.
“It’s kind of like a one-stop to get all of your questions answered,” Kroll said.
Spouses can visit the center, which opened on Friday, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day of the week. Someone will be available to answer the phone at the new center 24 hours a day, so emergencies can be handled even in the middle of the night.
The center brings together services and departments, previously scattered across the post, under one roof in the post’s welcome center, Building 3401. Chaplains, social workers, counselors, legal services, payroll experts, housing and transportation services, all are now, for the time being, consolidated.
It’s all part of a plan that the Army has had in place for several years but has never had to implement until now.
“We’ve trained and trained and trained for this,” said Sharon McLane, a deployment liaison specialist who by default has found herself working at the new center.
“When something like this happens it can overwhelm a community,” she said. Her mission in the next few weeks and months is to lessen that impact.
“We’re hand-walking people right where they need to go,” she said. “So the families aren’t searching for help. They go right where they need to.”
Senator takes commanders to task over Stryker extension
WASHINGTON–Top military commanders defended their war actions in Iraq on Thursday not only before a Senate committee but also in private with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. John Abizaid faced harsh criticism from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and others at an Armed Services Committee meeting Thursday morning.
In a private meeting that afternoon, Murkowski said, she asked Rumsfeld and Abizaid why homeward-bound Fort Wainwright soldiers were sent back to battle this week with so little notice and what the military would do to protect them.
Murkowski, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, all R-Alaska, have been consistent supporters of the Bush administration’s broad Iraq policies since before the war began in 2003. Young is traveling and Stevens was managing the Senate floor effort to pass the annual defense spending bill Thursday, but Murkowski sat down with Alaska reporters for a half-hour Thursday afternoon and shared her concerns about the latest turn of events.
“War is unpredictable. We know that,” Murkowski said. “But it is last-minute actions like this that erode the morale, that erode the family support that allow these fine men and women to be in the field to do the best job they possibly can.”
Murkowski said Rumsfeld and Abizaid told her they sent soldiers with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team to Baghdad at the very end of their one-year Iraq tour because “they are the best brigade out there and we need them.”
That decision, though, has been very difficult for the families, she said. It also may have longer-term implications, she said.
“We can’t have an all-volunteer force without providing them as much support as we possibly can from the communities, from the families,” Murkowski said. “So we need to remember that when things like this happen, that it can ultimately hurt recruitment and retention at a time when we need to have men and women serving us a long way from home.”
The rapid reversal also may be causing some logistical problems that could leave soldiers without some critical gear, Murkowski said she learned from spouses in Washington on Wednesday.
Team arrives in Fairbanks to help Stryker families
An eight-member team of Army staff experts are in Fairbanks to assist U.S. Army Alaska officials and families with questions surrounding the extension of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s deployment in Iraq.
Lt. Col. Wayne Shanks from Army Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., heads up the group, dubbed the Tiger Team. Shanks said the group is on scene to assist Alaska Army leadership with coordinating support for soldiers and their families affected by the extension.
They are able to connect with Army staff in Washington that may be able to help with specific issues.
“U.S. Army Alaska has really been pulling out all the stops, they’ve been doing the heavy lifting,” Shanks said. “We’re here as a conduit for the post … to get the right answers to the right people.”
Shanks said it’s unusual for such a team to be dispatched from Washington to an installation.
But Maj. Gen. Charles Jacoby, commander of U.S. Army Alaska, inquired about available resources from Army headquarters in Washington soon after the extension was announced in late June.
“Shortly after the announcement Gen. Jacoby started getting a feel for what types of problems families would encounter,” said U.S. Army Alaska spokesperson Maj. Kirk Gohlke.
“It quickly became apparent that there were going to have to be some exceptional fixes because there were some exceptional problems because the 172nd was being asked to do extraordinary things,” he said.
Shanks said the team also has been meeting directly with spouses, including traveling to Fort Richardson to meet with families of the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment based there. Shanks said the concerns from families are wide-ranging, including housing and finance issues and what will happen to a soldiers slot for a position or specialized schooling.
Shanks said officials are regularly assuring families that positions and school slots are being held for Stryker soldiers and will be available to them when the brigade’s extensions is complete.
“It’s a very wide variety of issues because everybody is an individual and they had their own plans that they had set up,” Shanks said. “It’s really varied depending on the individual.”
Army recalls 300 Strykers to Iraq
About 300 soldiers with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team who were sent home from Iraq will go back next week to rejoin the unit as it serves an extension of its deployment.
Surrounded by soldiers and spouses, Maj. Gen. Charles Jacoby, commander of U.S. Army Alaska, announced the decision to send back most of the soldiers who had arrived home from Iraq.
“Those of us on the periphery of this decision can only begin to imagine the thoughts and emotions going through the minds of these soldiers and especially the minds of these families,” he said.
Shortly after the second group of soldiers returned to Alaska in late June, Army officials announced Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had approved an extension of the brigade for up to 120 days past its yearlong deployment. All of the nearly 4,000 members of the brigade would have arrived at Fort Wainwright by the end of August. Instead, they were directed to move to Baghdad to help quell increased violence there.
When the extension was announced, brigade commander Col. Michael Shields said he would have to analyze his new mission to decide how many of the soldiers already returned to Alaska he would need to order back to Iraq. Most of the soldiers who arrived in Alaska were infantry members and cavalry scouts.
“To get those units whole and bring those teams back up to strength was seen by Col. Shields as a mission requirement,” Jacoby said.
Jacoby said each of the 378 soldiers’ circumstances was examined case by case. Some are being kept in Alaska because of medical reasons or because their specific task is not needed in Iraq. Some soldiers who had already been released to new assignments and moved out of state were ordered to return to Iraq.
The Army has been assisting families affected by the extension by opening the Family Assistance Center on Fort Wainwright and providing a team of Washington, D.C.-based Army staff that are experts in areas such as finance, logistics and family services.
Spouses and soldiers at the news conference Monday were told last week by Jacoby to expect they would likely return to Iraq. Jacoby did not downplay the roller coaster of emotions the extension has caused families. Before the video conference was linked to reporters in Washington, D.C., Jacoby told the spouses they were not expected to downplay their emotions for national and local media present.
“Nobody is expecting you to be happy about this,” Jacoby said. “Nobody wanted you to do cartwheels when the chief told you were going back,” he told the soldiers a short time later.
Most of the spouses present were longtime Army wives who said the circumstances are by no means ideal, but go with the territory of being the family of career soldiers.
Sen. Murkowski: Strykers will be coming home in December
Members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Iraq will return to Fort Wainwright by mid-December, according to a letter from Army Secretary Francis Harvey.
“The extension is for up to 120 days with the main body elements of the BCT now scheduled to return by mid-December 2006,” Harvey said in an Aug. 11 letter to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Murkowski released the letter Wednesday.
“As I expressed in my meetings with the families, and to (Defense) Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld, I would be deeply disappointed if any further extension of the deployment were considered,” Murkowski said in a news release. The Stryker soldiers were originally scheduled to return this month after a year’s tour in Iraq. The return was canceled after the return had begun and the brigade was directed to Baghdad to calm sectarian violence.
Harvey also assured Murkowski that soldiers will have the proper protective equipment in Iraq.
Murkowski said she remains “deeply concerned for the safety of the Strykers and the well-being of their families, and will remain actively engaged until all of our soldiers return home.”
Harvey and Murkowski are scheduled to be in Fairbanks today for Military and Family Appreciation Day.
Senator questions timing of Stryker redeployment
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she hasn’t received a good explanation of why the military reversed its decision to bring the 172nd Stryker Brigade home from Iraq just three days after an official return schedule was released.
“What happened between the 21st of July and the 24th of July that was so significant that Gen. (George) Casey said ‘I need the 172nd.’? What happened in three days? I don’t know and I can’t get an answer for it,” Murkowski said in an interview at the News-Miner on Thursday.
Military officials have said they needed to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad and the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Fort Wainwright was the best unit to do it.
Murkowski said she remains skeptical that the question arose within those three days. She said she asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the schedule early this month.
“I asked him ‘Why did you do it right at the end?’ He told me ‘I don’t have a good answer for that.’ And that to me is unacceptable,” she said.
“If you had told them even a couple weeks ahead of the announced return time, it would have allowed those families to just kind of say, ‘Oh crap, gotta deal with this,’ but you wouldn’t have had the kids on their hands and knees writing the ‘Welcome Home Daddy’ signs,” she said.
Murkowski said the 172nd’s extension doesn’t necessarily demonstrate that too few troops have been assigned to the war, as some critics have said.
“You do have to listen to the guys on the ground, the generals on the ground, who are running the operation there, to trust them that we have enough troops to do the job,” she said. “It’s really easy for me to sit back and say, ‘Clearly we need more.’ But I’m not qualified to make that statement.”
She said the generals would have no reason to mislead or contradict the administration’s civilian leaders. “What general would want to prolong this effort over there any more than they absolutely have to?” she asked.
Murkowski said she wouldn’t set a deadline to withdraw from Iraq but thought a gradual pullback would be advisable. Iraq must stand on its own, she said, and “perhaps we do have to back off so they know that we’re not going to be there 100 percent.”
Fairbanks shows its colors
Leaden skies and scattered showers Thursday didn’t discourage more than 4,000 members of the armed services and their families from converging on Pioneer Park for Military and Family Appreciation Day. Still, the crowd was smaller than organizers expected when they began planning the event more than a month ago.
“We hoped there would be 4,000 more people here today,” said Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Jim Whitaker. He was referring to the absence of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team.
When first planned, the event was billed as a combined military appreciation day and welcome home celebration for the 172nd. The bulk of the nearly 4,000 soldiers with the 172nd were expected to have returned by now to Fairbanks after its yearlong deployment to northern and western Iraq. Instead, U.S. officials extended the brigade’s deployment for another 120 days and relocated it to Baghdad to help quell increased violence there.
Not to be forgotten among the jarring news of the 172nd is the deployment of other servicemen and women in the area, including about 90 airmen from Eielson Air Force Base, who are deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and throughout the Pacific Region. An additional 300 airmen are preparing to deploy in the coming months.
The 3rd Air Support Operations Squadron from Eielson, which is attached to the Stryker brigade, also has been extended to stay with the brigade.
Additionally, about 600 members of the Alaska Army National Guard, including a battalion from Fairbanks, left the state last month for training in Mississippi before deploying to Iraq for a year.
Thursday’s event at Pioneer Park included free food, music, gifts, prizes and activities for military personnel and their families.
Because of the extension, several families attended without their soldier. Jade Webber, with a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of a Stryker vehicle and the words, “I’m married to a hero,” recently moved to Fairbanks. Her husband, Staff Sgt. Timothy Webber, is with the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment.
The battalion is the only one in the brigade to be stationed at Fort Richardson in Anchorage, but will be relocated to Fort Wainwright when the soldiers return.
Anticipating her husband would have returned by now, Webber and her two young sons moved to Fairbanks two months ago. She said Thursday’s event gave her and the kids a chance to get to know Fairbanks more.
Arctic Light offers extra layer of student support
In many ways, Arctic Light Elementary School looked like any other school on Monday. Students and teachers were already hard at work on the first day of class for the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.
But one only has to look at the bulletin boards scattered throughout the school’s halls to see that Arctic Light Elementary is different from other schools in some striking ways. The school, located on Fort Wainwright, boasts several bulletin boards decorated with camouflage backgrounds and peppered with military themes.
“You don’t see many schools doing that,” Superintendent Ann Shortt said.
Of course, not many schools in the district are located on a military base, and not many schools have so many children affected by the recent extension to the Stryker Brigade’s deployment in Iraq.
“I went into the classrooms to ask to see a show of hands of the students who had a parent whose return was delayed,” Principal Bill Martin-Muth said. “Lots and lots of children were in that boat.”
Since practically all of the students enrolled at Arctic Light live on base, all of them, in some way or another, are feeling the stress that comes with deployment. The bulletin boards echo that stress.
One declares in bold letters, “Far from Home, Close to our Hearts.” Another is covered with photos of students with their soldier parents. One photo, of a young boy standing with his father, the brilliantly sunny day reflected in their smiles, is captioned, “Daddy is my hero.”
The Stryker soldiers were originally scheduled to return to Fairbanks this month after a year’s tour in Iraq. Those plans were canceled, after some of the soldiers had already arrived home, and the brigade was ordered to Baghdad. The 300 or so soldiers who had already returned home traveled back to Iraq on Saturday.
Some of the students who went back to school on Monday thought they were going to be leaving Fairbanks, their families heading off to new assignments, before school started. Some had already said farewell to friends and teachers.
“We’ve seen lots of kids who said goodbye last spring,” said Debby Foster, a teacher at Arctic Light.
But, she said, they came to school excited and glad to be back with friends. “It’s comfortable for them here.”
September 2006
Senate gives OK for reimbursing Stryker families
WASHINGTON–The U.S. Senate has voted to let the Army reimburse families of 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team soldiers for unusual expenses caused by their recent Iraq service extension.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said Friday he proposed the amendment at the request of the military.
Stevens said Army officials were concerned they might not have the legal authority to reimburse families. They had promised to cover the cost of hotels and airline tickets that the families had bought in anticipation of the 172nd soldiers returning to Fort Wainwright.
“With the 172nd coming home, those families had made plans for vacations, to go visit families in other states, and made hotel and transportation reservations,” Stevens said.
“The department said they wanted to pay those to the extent they could, and someone questioned whether they had that authority,” Stevens said. “So we straightened it out to make sure they had the authority to do what they said they’d do.”
The amendment states the “expenses must have been incurred in good faith as a direct consequence of reasonable preparation for, or execution of, military orders.”
The authority only applies to soldiers of the 172nd, the amendment states.
Army gives more funds to Strykers
The U.S. Army has provided increased funding to address issues surrounding the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s extended deployment in Iraq.
The Army announced Tuesday that more than $5 million had been approved to come from the Installation Management Agency, which manages services, facilities and resources on Army installations.
The brigade was slated to return to Alaska in August after a yearlong deployment. But Army commanders and Pentagon officials approved a redeployment of up to four months so the nearly 4,000 soldiers could be moved to Baghdad to assist with quelling increased sectarian violence there.
The funding is slated for a variety of purposes on Forts Wainwright and Richardson according to an Army press release, including repair and upgrade of the Family Assistance Centers, extending the vehicle and household goods storage contracts for deployed soldiers, funding for Child and Youth Services activities and funding for civilian and contractor hires and overtime positions necessary to support soldiers and their families.
The Family Assistance Centers on Forts Wainwright and Richardson opened shortly after the extension was announced to provide support and experts to help answer questions about the extension. The center on Fort Wainwright has received more than 650 calls and assisted more than 100 visitors, according to the press release.
The Army Surgeon General’s office also sent two child psychologists to Bassett Army Community Hospital in response to the extension to train teachers and school counselors delivering mental-health services to children, according to the press release.
Military families call for Rumsfeld’s resignation
Some military families upset with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s portrayal of events in Iraq have asked U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski to call for the secretary’s resignation.
The request came in a Monday letter signed by half a dozen members of the Military Families Speak Out Alaska Chapter.
At Fort Wainwright in August, Rumsfeld met with families of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team to answer questions about the extension of the brigade’s tour of duty in Iraq. In late July, just as the 172nd was beginning its return to Alaska after a one-year deployment in northern Iraq, Rumsfeld approved a request from generals in Iraq to extend the 172nd’s deployment by up to four months and relocate to Baghdad
Rumsfeld’s action has met with a variety of responses. One course of action taken by several family members of the 172nd was to form a local chapter of Military Families Speak Out. On their Web site, the group said it’s an “organization of people opposed to the war in Iraq who have relatives or loved ones in the military.” It was formed in 2002, with a current membership of more than 3,000, according to the Web site.
In their letter to Murkowski, family members state that Rumsfeld, during his Fairbanks visit, did not answer the written questions and concerns given to him.
More importantly, they said, the families take issue with the reported number of civilian deaths from Iraq. The letter said Rumsfeld told families in August that the 172nd’s arrival in Baghdad had contributed to a 40 to 50 percent decrease of civilian deaths there.
“We felt proud of our spouse’s and children’s contribution to the reputation of the unit and that their courage and dedication was so immediately contributing to saving lives of innocent civilians,” the letter states.
But the authors of the letter said they discovered over the following weeks several news reports questioning the U.S. military’s data. The letter cites a Washington Post article that said morgues in Baghdad reported that the death toll nearly tripled in August and that deaths from car bombings and mortar attacks are not included in the military’s count.
The letter states the authors believe Rumsfeld was “wrongfully deceptive” in his August remarks about civilian casualties.
“We urge you to stand up for the truth and immediately call for Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation and an end to this war,” the letter to Murkowski states.
Deployment paves way for Strykers’ return
WASHINGTON–A brigade team from Texas will leave for Iraq a month early to set the stage for the return of Fort Wainwright’s 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, the U.S. Army told members of Congress on Monday.
“The 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division will deploy 30 days earlier than originally scheduled and begin their deployment in late October,” the Army said in a news release. The combat team is based in Fort Bliss, Texas.
The Army gave additional information to all members of Congress Monday stating that the early deployment will allow the 172nd Stryker team to begin their return. The Army did not provide a specific timeline to Congress, however.
“We’re encouraged about this news,” said Kevin Sweeney, spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. “This is a move that will allow for the commitment to bring the troops home within 120 days.”
Soldiers in the 172nd Stryker team were told, just days before they were preparing to return to Alaska in late July, that their one-year tour in Iraq would be extended. Some soldiers had already returned to Alaska and were sent back to Iraq.
Date of Strykers’ return still unclear
WASHINGTON–Army officials say they would like to bring Fort Wainwright’s Stryker Brigade soldiers back from Iraq before mid-December, but whether that will be possible isn’t clear yet.
The 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s stay in Iraq was extended for 120 days in late July, just at the end of their year-long tour.
The 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Bliss, Texas, will go to Iraq in late October to “allow for the redeployment of the 172nd,” the Army said in a bulletin to members of Congress on Monday afternoon.
The Army did not provide a timeline to members of Congress, but subsequent separate statements from Army and Pentagon officials late Monday and on Tuesday made it clear that the hope is to bring the 172nd home before the end of the 120-day extension.
“No date or time has been announced for the relief in place and transfer of authority from the 172nd to its replacement unit, but the intention is clearly to bring the 172nd SBCT home before the end of its 120-day extension,” said Maj. Kirk Gohlke, spokesman for the U.S. Army Alaska.
The American Forces Press Service, in an article posted on the Defense Department Web site Tuesday, quoted Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman saying “there is some desire” to move up the 172nd’s return date.
Whitman and another Pentagon spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, said the commander of the Multinational Force in Iraq would make the decision.
Young: Policy of rotating troops needs a closer look
WASHINGTON–Rep. Don Young said he thinks Congress ought to look at the military’s policy of rotating soldiers out of combat zones, given the dissatisfaction caused by the recent extension of the 172nd Stryker Combat Brigade Team’s tour in Iraq.
Young, speaking with Alaska media Wednesday at his Washington, D.C., office, declined to second-guess the military’s decision to extend the 172nd’s tour for 120 days just as the unit was scheduled to return to Fort Wainwright, the Army post abutting the city of Fairbanks. Young’s muted response has drawn criticism from, among others, his Democratic election opponent, Diane Benson.
“I think if there was any mistake or blame to be placed, it (was in) setting a time-certain about what time you serve in combat,” Young said Wednesday. “That is something I think we’re going to be looking at.”
Young said military commanders who served during the Vietnam War have told him that rotating people in and out of combat situations is unwise.
“The new ones that came in were unprepared or trained to have actual combat one-on-one, so we lost new ones,” Young said. “But more than that, we lost the older combat veterans because they became more ‘I’m going to make it, I’m through, I’m out of here,’ and so the attention span, the sharp edge that was there prior to, was gone.”
The rotation is a relatively new idea in warfare, he said.
“In World War II you served for the duration,” he said. “My one cousin, a Marine, got shot 11 times, 11 Jap bullets. Eleven different times, not one time. And he was sent back into combat every time when he was healed.”
Soldiers were drafted for 24 months during the Korean War, Young said. “There was no limitation on the combat time, other than within the 24 months. The average time was 18 months,” he said.
The one-year rotation only became military practice during the Vietnam War, he said.
“So I think we ought to start re-analyzing where we are, especially in the voluntary Army,” he said. “Do we set a time-certain when you’re in a combat zone or do we say that is at the discretion of the commander and does it jeopardize the mission?”