This story originally ran in the Nov. 30, 2006, issue of the News-Miner.
The excitement was tangible and infectious in Fort Wainwright’s large alert holding area at around 8:45 a.m. Wednesday as hundreds of family and friends of returning Stryker soldiers waited to welcome their soldiers home from Iraq.
In the midst of all the excitement, some soldiers, like Sgt. Jason Scoggins, simply picked up their bags and walked over to one side of the hangar to look for a ride to the barracks. Scoggins, 25, isn’t married and didn’t have anyone there Wednesday morning to welcome him home.
“I think a lot of the single soldiers, they really come home to each other because that’s all we have,” Scoggins said.
But Maria Sicard and other members of the Stryker Brigade’s Family Readiness Groups, as well as several service organizations in town, are working to make sure the single soldiers coming home from Iraq get as much care as the married soldiers.
“As wives, we prepared for our own husbands to come home,” said Sicard, a Family Readiness Group leader. “But as single soldiers, they don’t have anyone to prepare stuff for them.”
The Family Readiness Groups on Fort Wainwright have spent the last few weeks getting the returning Stryker soldiers’ barracks ready. They’ve stocked the barracks of single soldiers with sodas, bottled water and toiletries.
“You know, basic necessities,” she said.
They even filled the barracks’ freezers with frozen pizzas and other comfort foods.
Some of the families of single soldiers couldn’t make the trip up to Fairbanks to welcome them home, but working with the Family Readiness Group leaders, they were able to make sure their soldiers knew they were loved, Sicard said.
Proud parents, fiancees and girlfriends living in the Lower 48 sent Sicard and others on base care packages to be delivered to their soldiers.
Shanan Sailsburg, another member of the Family Readiness Group, said that there was a concerted effort to make welcome home signs to line the roads on base for soldiers whose families don’t live in Fairbanks.
The Red Cross in Fairbanks has donated hundreds of bars of soap as well as bottles of shampoo and conditioner for the single soldiers coming home from Iraq. The toiletries come from local businesses as well as from outside service agencies.
“We’ve been getting boxes daily full of sheets, blankets, pillows, smelly stuff, lotions, razors,” said Margie Achmann, station manager for the Red Cross on Fort Wainwright. “We’re just kind of getting them the comforts of home.”
But the soldiers don’t just need toiletries, Achmann said. The Red Cross here has 3,500 long-distance phone cards the organization has been handing out to soldiers as they step off the plane from Iraq so that they can call their parents and other loved ones across the country.
“I have a list of single soldiers whose moms are all over the country,” Achmann said. “With this situation, it makes you feel good to be able to hook up a mother and son.”
Besides arranging for a good homecoming for the single soldiers, Sailsburg said the Family Readiness Groups are trying to make those soldiers’ adjustment to life back in Alaska as smooth as possible.
“I printed out somebody’s insurance card for them so he could drive legally once he got here,” Sailsburg said.
The fact that there is someone available to help out with those little details means a lot to the single soldiers, saidScoggins, one of those single soldiers who returned Wednesday.
“The (Family Readiness Groups) have been really supportive,” he said. “We’re all really thankful for that.”
Pvt. 1st Class John Cain said that, even though he doesn’t have any family here, it feels good to be back home in Fairbanks. He said it didn’t bother him all that much that he didn’t have anyone at Fort Wainwright on Wednesday morning to spend some time with.
“Being alone’s going to be good after being crammed together with 200 guys,” he said.
Many of the single soldiers arriving from Iraq on Wednesday said they were looking forward to a hot shower, getting some new civilian clothes and eating at their favorite restaurants.
“More than likely, you’re going to see me at a bar,” Cain said when asked about his plans now that he’s home. “I’m going to start by taking out my cell phone, making some calls and thinking about what kind of liquor I’m going to buy.”
Two flights of soldiers arrived on Wednesday. The first arrived at 12:45 a.m. with members of the 4th Battalion 11th Field Artillery, the 4th Battalion 23rd Infantry Regiment, and the 21st Signal Company. Soldiers arriving on the 8:45 a.m. flight were with the 1st Battalion 17 Infantry Regiment and the 572nd Military Intelligence Company.
So far about 2,400 of the 3,800 or so brigade members have returned home to either Fairbanks or Fort Richardson near Anchorage. The flights bringing the Stryker soldiers back home to Fairbanks are scheduled to continue through Dec. 5.