Troops still expected to return in December
WASHINGTON–A top military commander’s recent statement should not be taken as an indication that Alaska’s 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team will return from Iraq any later than mid-December, according to spokesmen for the Pentagon and an Alaska senator.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed troop levels with reporters at a news conference Tuesday.
“Back in August and July, we thought we might be able to reduce the size of U.S. forces by this Christmas, and then the violence in Baghdad increased,” Pace said.
Pace delivered the comment in explaining overall troop levels in Iraq, according to Col. Mark Ballesteros, spokesman with the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
“In no way was he addressing specific units,” Ballesteros said.
The approximately 4,400 soldiers in the 172nd, most of whom came from Fort Wainwright, are scheduled to be home by mid-December. Their one-year tour of duty in Iraq was extended in late July for an additional 120 days.
Pace, in the Pentagon news conference, was responding to a question from a reporter about comments made by Gen. George Casey that morning in Iraq. Casey had said he hoped Iraqi security forces could take the lead within 12 to 18 months. The Pentagon reporter asked Pace what Casey’s estimate meant for troop levels.
Pace, in his response, started by describing the shift in thinking that occurred last summer after Baghdad’s violence grew. He then described how that led to the 172nd’s extension.
“Gen. Casey, in his continuing assessments, determined that he needed to keep the U.S. forces he had, and he recommended that,” Pace said. “And I agree with that and made that recommendation to the (Defense) secretary and the president. And he kept that size force.”
Kevin Sweeney, spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said it seems clear that Pace’s comment about being unable to reduce the size of U.S. forces by Christmas referred to overall troop levels and not the 172nd’s schedule.
“We’ve received no indication whatsoever that they’ve changed their commitment to bring the troops home in December,” he said.
Soldiers with service battalion return from Iraq
Yellow ribbons adorned the supporting pillars of the large Alert Holding Area hangar on Fort Wainwright early Friday. The atmosphere was jubilant as soldiers and civilians mingled while members of the 9th Army Band played a few stirring tunes.
Everyone in the small but enthusiastic crowd was gathered there to welcome home the 41 soldiers of the 203rd Personnel Services Battalion who have been deployed in Mosul, Iraq, since last October.
The 203rd Personnel Services Battalion handled paperwork and administrative duties for all the other soldiers in Mosul. They dealt with payroll and promotion issues. They made sure the arriving soldiers had everything they needed and got where they were supposed to go. They arranged for flights for soldiers leaving the Mosul area either for reassignment or for rest and relaxation.
As Sgt. Kevin Wilson said, he and his fellow members of the battalion were the first to greet the soldiers when they arrived in the combat zone of Mosul. And for the soldiers stationed in Mosul, Wilson and his team tried to make sure they didn’t get lost or frustrated by Army bureaucracy. They also perfected a tracking system for flights, passengers and cargo that is now the standard used at the Mosul Airfield.
“It’s not a glamorous job, but it’s a critical job,” said Col. Robert Ball, the deputy commander of U.S. Army Alaska. “When the soldiers are out patrolling the streets of Mosul or Baghdad, they don’t want to worry about pay or administrative paperwork. And they don’t have to because soldiers like these were over there with them.”
Even though they weren’t out patrolling the streets or facing the enemy in fierce firefights, the members of the 203rd had to deal with the realities of war. One of their duties was to make arrangements for soldiers who were injured or killed in action. They processed the paperwork to make sure the soldiers’ families were notified and made arrangements for the injured soldiers to get the medical treatment they needed or for the bodies of soldiers to be sent back to the United States.
“That job, for everyone, was kind of the hardest,” Wilson said.
The 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, also of Fort Wainwright, was stationed in Mosul for much of its current deployment and even though the 203rd wasn’t technically assigned to the brigade, Wilson said, sometimes it sure felt like it.
Murkowski endorses Rumsfeld exit
WASHINGTON–Sen. Lisa Murkowski “wholeheartedly” endorsed the exit of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday after months of publicly supporting him.
At the same time, Murkowski cautioned that the news won’t do much in the short-term to improve the situation in Iraq. Rumsfeld had been under pressure to resign as U.S. troops continue to rotate into a land of increasing violence.
Murkowski said Rumsfeld’s resignation is a recognition by President Bush that a new direction is needed for Iraq, as critics have said. But which direction isn’t clear to her or critics, she said.
“Many of them said the new direction is getting rid of Rumsfeld,” Murkowski said. “I said to the people in Fairbanks, ‘Getting rid of him does not win the war on terror.’”
Murkowski said she hopes that something can be gained from, as Bush said, a “fresh perspective.” Bush named former CIA Director Robert Gates as the new defense secretary.
“It does force a critical review, a critical analysis of where we are and how we intend to accomplish the goal,” Murkowski said.
Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska’s senior senator, was traveling and helping with some family matters and so was not available for comment Wednesday, according to spokesman Aaron Saunders. Stevens spoke with both Rumsfeld and Gates about the change, Saunders said.
Stevens also consistently supported Rumsfeld in recent months. He also was less critical than Murkowski of the secretary’s decision in late July to extend the Fort Wainwright-based 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s tour for up to 120 days just as it was concluding a year of service in Iraq.
November 2006
Strykers to begin returning soon
Preparations for the homecoming of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team are in full swing.
The brigade is expected to begin returning to Fairbanks the weekend of Nov. 25 and 26, according to Fort Wainwright spokeswoman Linda Douglass, who warns that those dates are tentative and could change. Ideally, she said the entire brigade of more than 3,500 soldiers will be back by mid-December.
In anticipation of the return, The Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce has scheduled a Heroes Welcome Home Celebration for military personnel on Dec. 20.
The celebration, scheduled for noon to 8 p.m., will have events at the Carlson Center, Fairbanks Curling Club and Pioneer Park. The offerings will include children’s activities, free food and beverages, live entertainment, prizes and giveaways, an outdoor bonfire and fireworks. The events are free and open to all military personnel and their families, not just the Stryker Brigade.
Star-Spangled Classic
With the BP Top of the World Classic NCAA Division I men’s college basketball tournament kicking into full gear Thursday, the festivities started well before the first tip-off, the first bounce pass or the first slam dunk in the Alaska Nanooks’ 71-66 loss to Weber State.
With events ranging from a pregame tailgate party to the Nanooks mascot rappelling down from the Carlson Center rafters, the highlight was a taped, two-minute message from members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade that was sent in from Iraq.
Flanked by fellow Strykers, Col. Mike Shields followed a tribute to the Strykers on the video scoreboard by sending a greeting to their friends and family back in Fairbanks before sending along their wishes for their comrades injured or killed in Iraq.
“We’d like to wish all our friends and family back in Fairbanks a happy Veterans Day and Thanksgiving that’s coming up,” Shields said in the video. “On behalf of the folks here in Baghdad, we’d like to extend all our thoughts and prayers to the families of our wounded and the soldiers that have fallen in combat. Peace be with you and we look forward to getting home soon.”
Shields concluded with a message to the Alaska basketball team: “UAF, let’s take this one.”
Strykers heading home
The 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team ended its combat operations in Baghdad on Monday, essentially bringing to a close its major work in Iraq, an Army official said Tuesday.
Col. Robert Ball, deputy commander of U.S. Army Alaska, made the announcement at a Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
The roughly 3,800 soldiers with the brigade will begin arriving in Fairbanks on Saturday after completing a 16-month tour in Iraq. Army Alaska spokesman Maj. Kirk Gohlke said all the soldiers are scheduled to be back in Alaska by Dec. 5.
About 200 soldiers with the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment of the brigade will fly into Anchorage. The 4-23 was based at Fort Richardson before the unit’s Iraq deployment but has relocated to Fort Wainwright so the entire brigade is together.
The 172nd deployed to Iraq in August 2005 in what was the largest combat deployment of Alaska-based troops since the Vietnam War. While deployed, the brigade conducted operations across northern and western Iraq, including Mosul, Tal Afar and the remote outpost of Rawah, near the Syrian border. After the brigade began returning home in July, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved a 120-day extension of the 172nd so it could be relocated to Baghdad and help quell sectarian violence there. About 300 soldiers who had already returned to Alaska were sent back to Iraq after the extension.
Twenty-six brigade soldiers died during the deployment, seven of them during the extension.
Upon their return, most of the soldiers with the 172nd will receive new orders and disperse to other assignments.
Gohlke said three C-17 aircraft also have been dedicated to airlift some of the brigade’s equipment from Kuwait to Fort Wainwright. Many of the details are being arranged by Army Materiel Command, a segment of the Army that provides logistical, technical and overhaul support.
December 2006
Soldiers find families, beer, pizza and limos waiting
Thursday was a busy day on Fort Wainwright as nearly 1,000 of the 3,800 soldiers of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team returned from Iraq to Fairbanks.
It was the busiest day for arrivals since the brigade began arriving in Alaska on Nov. 25. Most of the soldiers arrived after dark to Fort Wainwright via bus from Eielson Air Force Base. But bright lights were placed along the road inside the front gate to illuminate the hundreds of welcome home signs hung along the fence.
The arrival of the Buffalos of the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry started off the day with gusto. Lt. Col. Al Kelly led his soldiers off the buses at the Alert Holding Area on Fort Wainwright with a soldier carrying the flag of the unit, waving it to cheers from the waiting crowd. Kelly kept his soldiers in sharp formation until he dismissed them with an echoing yell and arms raised in the air.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Kelly said of the grand entrance minutes later as he stood in the midst of soldiers and families reuniting.
With the arrival of three flights in one day, the reunions ran close together Thursday. Karen Lewis thought she was arriving four hours early to meet her husband, Pfc. Michael Lewis. But when she arrived, the families and soldiers from the first flight were just leaving the building.
Still, she was able to accomplish her goal of securing a front-row seat. She said she’d talked to other families who spent long minutes trying to find their soldier once they were dismissed and the crush of family and soldiers began. Lewis wanted to get a seat front and center so she could easily spot her husband.
“So we can run to him right away,” she said.
She’d brought her parents, sister-in-law and nieces and nephews to greet her husband as well. Michael is from Iowa, but Karen and her family are Fairbanks natives.
Mary Cheney, a Family Readiness Group leader with the 2-1 said she knew of at least 15 families from the Lower 48 who came to Fairbanks to welcome their soldier. Jan Pichard and her husband had tickets to come from Houston, Texas, to Fairbanks in August, when the brigade was originally scheduled to return. However, a last-minute extension kept the soldiers in Iraq another four months..
Pichard said her son, Cpl. Samuel Pichard, 21, surprised her with a ticket for a November flight one day when they were instant messaging each other over the Internet.
“He asked if I wanted window or aisle,” she said. “I said ‘If you’re buying me a ticket, you can strap me on the wing, I don’t care.’”
New Strykers welcome troops
Not all of the Stryker soldiers at Friday morning’s homecoming ceremony had spent the last 16 months in Iraq.
With many of the members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade, based out of Fort Wainwright, scheduled to retire or move on to other assignments outside of Alaska now that their deployment in Iraq has ended, their replacements have already begun arriving in Fairbanks.
“We’re starting the next life cycle with these guys,” Sgt. Jason Lewton, with the 4th Battalion 23rd Infantry, said.
While the 300 or so brigade members arriving from Iraq on the latest flight Friday morning greeted their families and friends, a group of the newest members of the 172nd, some who have only been in Fairbanks for a month or so, were busy unloading their fellow soldiers’ backpacks and duffle bags.
The soldiers worked quickly, unloading more than 600 bags off two large semi trucks and lining them up neatly on the floor of the large hangar so that the soldiers and their families could quickly find their belongings. Once the bags were unloaded, the soldiers, all members of the 4-23, helped control the crowd of excited family members and helped returning soldiers who needed to get to their barracks or hotel rooms.
Pvt. Andrew Meyer, who has been at Fort Wainwright for four months, said he volunteered for the baggage-handling detail in part because he wanted a chance to help out his fellow soldiers returning from war and to get a chance to get to know some of them before they left Alaska.
“I wanted to talk to some of them first so I know what we’re getting in to,” he said. “They’ve all got great stories to tell.”
Most of the newest members of the brigade have never been inside of a Stryker, the eight-wheeled armored vehicle used by the brigade, let alone driven one. Now that the soldiers of the 172nd have almost all returned home from Iraq and the brigade’s 300 or so Stryker vehicles will soon follow, the new soldiers will get their chance to get behind the controls.
“I’m looking forward to training,” Pvt. David Montgomery said. “All we do is classroom stuff, with no hands-on equipment yet.”
More reunite as 220 soldiers arrive
This time last year, Jan and Dave Reed were experiencing their first, and what they thought would be their last, Fairbanks winter.
The couple, from Southwest Harbor, Maine, had come to town in the summer of 2005 to house- and dog-sit for their son and daughter-in-law, who were deploying to Iraq with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team.
With the brigade scheduled to be home by August, the couple expected to be long gone from the sub-zero temperatures and darkness by now, working as lighthouse guides at Cape Disappointment in Washington state.
But when their son, Lt. Col. Shawn Reed, and his wife, Maj. Mary Reed called in late July to say the brigade’s tour had been extended and would move to Baghdad for up to four months, Jan and Dave didn’t think twice about staying on in Fairbanks for at least part of a second winter.
“We got extended along with everyone else,” Dave said.
The extension for both couples ended Sunday when Shawn arrived in Fairbanks with a group of 220 brigade soldiers.
He was greeted by his parents and Mary, who returned to Fairbanks last week. Sunday’s flight of soldiers was one of the final groups to return to Alaska in the last week after their 16-month tour in Iraq.
The final large group of soldiers is expected in Fairbanks on Tuesday, with the last group of the trail party expected by Dec. 15.
Nearly all Strykers back home
Family and friends are breathing tentative sighs of relief as one of the last group of soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team arrived in Fairbanks on Tuesday night. But commanders are waiting to exhale until they are all home.
“Not until all the chicks are in the nest,” Lt. Col. Greg Parrish said, referring to the unit’s rear detachment.
The arrival of the 179 soldiers on Friday means that 95 percent of the brigade is back on Alaska soil after a 16-month deployment. There are no brigade soldiers left in Iraq but roughly 150 remain in Kuwait, facilitating the movement of soldiers and equipment to Alaska. They are expected in Fairbanks between Sunday and Dec. 15.
Since the soldiers began arriving in Alaska on Nov. 25, the crowds at the Alert Holding Area on Fort Wainwright have remained steady. Soldiers who returned days ago attend the homecomings and some family members haven’t missed a single arrival.
Mary Cheney, leader of the Family Readiness Group for a company of soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, has attended each of the more than a dozen flights returning to Fairbanks. She said it was bittersweet, knowing that her husband was arriving on one of the last flights. But her time finally came Tuesday.
“I feel like I’m going on my first date,” she said.
The brigade’s commander, Col. Michael Shields, has been at the homecoming of each group since he returned on Nov. 27.
“This is the most rewarding part,” he said from the back of the anxious crowd Tuesday. “Coming back to see this.”
But like Parrish, Shields said until the entire brigade is in Alaska he won’t be completely at ease.
“Getting there,” he said.