Alaskans and all Americans can be proud of these great soldiers. The Arctic Wolves performed magnificently in Ninewah, and Al Anbar Province and in Baghdad during the 120-day extension and will take a unique place in our nation’s military history. The courage, sacrifice, selfless service, and discipline of our great soldiers serve as an example for us all.

This organization was feared by the threat and for good reason. The Arctic Wolves were the hunters, not the hunted and were the most lethal, agile, and adaptive organization in theater.

The training, valor and courage of our soldiers were evident in every contact with the enemy resulting in two Distinguished Service Cross nominations, five Silver Stars, and over 75 Bronze Stars for Valor and Army Commendation Medals for Valor. For our outstanding performance in combat in Ninewah and Baghdad, Gen.Casey approved the Valorous Unit Award for the 172nd SBCT.

We have received unbelievable support during this deployment. There are so many people and organizations to thank. I would like to thank Sen. Ted Stevens, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Maj. Gen. Jacoby, Chick Wallace, and the mayors for their support as well as the DA Tiger Team and Operation First Response. I would like to thank the USARAK/garrison staffs, the communities of Fort Richardson, Elmendorf Air Force Base, Anchorage but especially the Fairbanks, Fort Wainwright, and Eielson Air Force Base communities.

The support the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team received from the Fairbanks community is the best I have seen in 23 years of service and has been simply humbling. All done quietly, without fanfare or public recognition. Examples of the outpouring of support include helping families financially, vehicle maintenance, snow removal, providing financial support to families of fallen comrades so that they could fly up to attend the ceremonies, Arctic Wolf Memorial Fund donations, monument support, child care, provision of special medical equipment, and so much more.

Some of the Fairbanks organizations I would like to recognize include churches, school boards, all of the organizations and businesses involved with Project Partnership, the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce (and Military Affairs Committee), the University of Alaska Fairbanks (to include KUAC VTC support) and the Carlson Center, Fairbanks law enforcement agencies, the VFW / American Legion, and other local municipal and civic organizations. I would like to thank KIAK FM for initiating the campaign to invite soldiers to local residences for Christmas dinner and Alaskan Granite Works for volunteering to donate the 172nd SBCT Memorial. I have left so many out but please know that the 172nd SBCT thanks you all for your support and that we will never forget your generosity.

I would like to thank the Daily News-Miner for its support and fair and honest coverage of our deployment. Margaret Friedenauer is a courageous reporter who deployed to Iraq, went into harm’s way, and participated on numerous combat operations with our units. Margaret, thanks for your courage in putting yourself at risk to tell the 172nd SBCT story to Alaskans and our nation.

Most importantly, I want to thank the spouses and families of our great soldiers who are the true heroes of this war. Nothing I can say can adequately express my gratitude or the absolute respect I have for you. What has been asked of you is not quantifiable; the stress of the 12-month combat deployment, casualties, and then the disappointment of a late-notice 120-day extension in combat with 300-plus soldiers already home … it’s more than any unit has been asked to bear in this war. And bear it you did, with grace, arctic moxie, and faith. Your sacrifice, selfless service, and sense of duty as military family members are inspiring to us all. It has been an honor to serve with you as part of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

This success did not come without a great cost. The Arctic Wolves lost 26 soldiers and had over 350 wounded in action. I heard once that soldiers never truly die until we forget them. Our fallen soldiers and contractors’ sacrifices will never be forgotten. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families of our wounded and fallen soldiers. As we prepare to celebrate Christmas with our families, we will not forget the soldiers and their families who remain in harm’s way; 3/2 SBCT, our brothers from the 4/25th BCT (Abn) from Fort Richardson, our Multi National Division (Baghdad) partners in Baghdad, and 1/1 Armored Division in Ramadi who served alongside us in Northern Iraq (and who have also been extended).

May God bless our soldiers and families, the great state of Alaska, and America.

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.

After 16 months in Iraq — four of those on a grueling assignment in Baghdad — members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team are buying clothes, cars, electronics and booze, frequenting night clubs and providing a much-anticipated rousing to the local economy.

The shopping started almost immediately after the soldiers arrived at Fort Wainwright over a 16-day period from late November to early this month.

Many of the young, single soldiers had few civilian clothes to change into when they arrived in Fairbanks.

Awaiting them was a sprawl of new businesses in northwest Fairbanks near the Steese and Johansen Expressway that weren’t open when the brigade left in August 2005, including Old Navy and Sportsman’s Warehouse.

At Old Navy, store manager Luke Allegood said Dec. 2 there were at least 200 soldiers shopping in the store the day before.

With short haircuts, slight tans and wrinkled clothes, Allegood said the soldiers weren’t hard to spot.

“They look just as tired as can be,” he said.

Mostly, Allegood said the soldiers were snapping up casual tops, coats and pants — especially jeans.

“They’ve just ravaged the jeans,” he said, although the section was still well-stocked shortly after opening.

A few doors down at Sportsman’s Warehouse, store manager Doug Mason said he’s seen a marked increase in business in the last two weeks. He said the soldiers are buying everything from clothing to ice fishing gear to firearms.

“They come in here and it’s just like heaven for them,” he said.

Spc. Daniella Doerr and her fianc�, Spc. Shaun Schellenger, both of the 172nd, were in Sportsman’s Warehouse on Dec. 2 looking at firearms for Schellenger. All soldiers, who were required to carry weapons with them most of the time while in Iraq, turned them in upon landing at Eielson Air Force Base

“I carried one around long enough,” Doerr said of the couples’ firearms shopping trip. “But I guess he misses his.”

Sportsman’s Warehouse was Doerr’s second shopping stop when she arrived in Fairbanks one week ago. She wore the one civilian outfit she had, which included a T-shirt of Schellenger’s, to Old Navy for some clothes, and then to Sportsman’s Warehouse for more clothes and cold-weather gear like boots, snow pants and a jacket.

Later in the day, the couple was planning on shopping for furnishings for their new home, after lunch at Chili’s Grill & Bar, another place that’s seen a bump in business with the return of the brigade. Franchise partner John DeHaven said some days last week, almost half the restaurant’s sales were from military personnel.

“We expect the influx in business throughout the first of the year,” he said.

Jeremy Fillippi, manager at Gene’s Chrysler, said new car sales have been up, as have sales for home and vehicle audio equipment at Radio Shack/Interior Electronics, according to employee Alex Everett. A manager at Big Ray’s Store said stocking caps are a recent popular purchase for soldiers with short haircuts, trying to stave off the chill. Those same haircuts are sending soldiers to area barber shops in droves.

“On a Saturday, I’ll probably have at least five come in from the base since they came back,” said Jerry Wright, who owns JD Styles.

Eve Blake, a stylist at Kreative Kutz, described business there as “crazy busy.”

“We had a five-hour wait last week,” Blake said. “They were coming in with chopped-up haircuts. They’re glad to be back and get a real haircut.”

Some businesses started seeing the effects of the brigade’s return before the soldiers even began arriving. It was like Christmas shopping had started early at Linens and Lace when the wives and girlfriends of some of the estimated 3,800 soldiers began shopping in early November for lingerie for their sweethearts’ return, said manager Shanna Nelson.

When the waves of soldiers began arriving in later in the month, business only got better.

“We’ve been extremely busy in here every day,” Nelson said.

A supervisor at the Class VI liquor store on Fort Wainwright said the store has seen a major jump in revenue since the soldiers’ return.

On a Friday in late November, revenue estimates show the store sold four times the amount of alcohol compared with Fridays while the brigade was gone.

“We can’t keep it in here,” supervisor Judy Nickel said.

Reflections, a bar featuring topless dancers, dropped its cover charge temporarily as a thank you to the soldiers, said manager Connie Kerns.

While the soldiers were gone, business was slow, Kerns said. Now it’s swung to the opposite side of the pendulum.

“This week, with so many soldiers coming in, it’s busier than a normal December,” Kerns said.

Rick Mensik owns the night club Kodiak Jack’s and said business picked up noticeably the week after the soldiers returned, though it wasn’t as busy as he had hoped.

“It was good,” Mensik said. “It just wasn’t as significant as I thought it would be. I’m sure this weekend will be a different story, when they get rested up.”

Despite the increased in nightlife, local authorities said the soldiers are, for the most part, staying out of trouble with the law.

A magistrate at the Rabinowitz Courthouse said there’s no dramatic rise in the number of military members coming through. A sergeant with the Fairbanks Police Department said the agency is busier now that the soldiers are home, but reports of unruly people haven’t increased markedly.

“We’ve certainly seen an increase in our nightlife traffic,” said Sgt. Eric Jewkes said. “There’s been more people at the bars and dance clubs and places like that.”

Jewkes credited the military for establishing “courtesy patrols” or uniformed soldiers tasked with visiting area businesses and keeping an eye on off-duty soldiers, especially late at night.

“They’ve been at places to diffuse things before we even get there,” Jewkes said. “Most of them have been really nice and respectful and are behaving themselves.”

But Jewkes also echoed the sentiment many in the community feel in response to the soldiers’ return.

“They’ve earned their good time,” Jewkes said. “They’ve earned their night on the town.”

Staff writer Margaret Friedenauer may be reached at 459-7545 or mfriedenauer@newsminer.com. Staff writer Amanda Bohman may be reached at 459-7544 or abohman@newsminer.com.

But standing in that Alert Holding Area on Fort Wainwright Tuesday night, 90 minutes felt like an eternity.

I guess patience isn’t exactly in large supply when you are anticipating the imminent return of your husband from Iraq.

Standing amid the other moms and dads and spouses and children who were also impatiently awaiting the arrival of loved ones, I found myself fidgety.

I picked up Connor and then put him back down every five minutes, and I must have readjusted the belt and buttons on my black and red welcome home dress at least 50 times.

Every moment felt like another extension and every minute felt like another deployment. I talked a million miles a minute, and I must have asked my friend at least 20 times if the soldiers had left Eielson Air Force Base yet to head to Fort Wainwright.

I detested the anticipation.

I had so many emotions built up inside from 16 months of missing my husband like crazy and was experiencing this physical longing stronger than anything else I’d ever known to just touch him, hug him and hold him.

Which is maybe why, when the Army band began to play and those three magic garage doors simultaneously began to open, I broke down into tears.

I cried as the nearly 200 soldiers disembarked the buses that transported them from Eielson as the crowd erupted in cheers and the families burst into applause. I wept as the soldiers made their formation on the far side of the room, and I sobbed as they marched across that hangar-like area to their place in front of us.

And when their commander released them to their families, I broke down.

Soldiers sprinted toward us, frantically searching for their families, and in the crowd, I just couldn’t see my husband. He wasn’t in the very front, he wasn’t in the very back, he wasn’t near his old commander, he wasn’t near anyone else I knew.

I was starting to panic, when all of a sudden, two soldiers cleared my path of vision and for the first time, I spotted him. I literally lost my breath. My heart fluttered the way it did the first time I met my husband, and I felt just like that 18-year-old girl again as we made eye contact for the first time.

My heart dropped, and my husband beamed.

I’ve never run so fast with a child in my arms in my entire mommy life. I had tunnel vision as I trotted toward the man of my dreams and flung my one arm around his neck as he embraced the two of us with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen from a man in uniform.

He held us tight, told me through giant smiling teeth that he loved me and missed me, and then pulled away to look down at his son for the first time since he was 11 days old. And in an act that I’m positive must have been from God, Connor looked up at his daddy and smiled as if Matt had been a physical part of his life for all eight months.

I cried. Then I laughed. Then I smiled. Then I shed another tear.

We hugged, we kissed, we stared at the beautiful life we had created together.

And when it was all said and done and our run-leap-hug maneuver was complete, we walked out of that AHA, hand in hand, with our worlds once again connected and our love once again in tangible form.

There’s no more counting down the days “until they come home.”

My hero is home, and my life is once again complete.

Local freelance writer Michelle Cuthrell wrote weekly columns about life as a military spouse while her husband, a lieutenant with the 2-1 Infantry Battalion, was deployed with the 172nd Stryker Brigade. This column appeared Dec. 8, 2006.

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.

With nearly half the soldiers of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team back on the ground in Alaska, it was Col. Michael Shields that led another group of more than 300 soldiers in front of waiting family and friends on Fort Wainwright on Monday.

Shields, brigade commander, was joined by Sergeant Major of the brigade, Joe Ulibarri, and two battalion commanders, Col. Scott Wuestner of the 4th battalion, 11th field artillery and Lt. Col. Bill Keyes of the brigade support battalion in the group of soldiers that arrived Monday.

Like each group that is arriving throughout the week, soldiers arrived at Eielson Air Force Base on Monday for processing and then were bused to Fort Wainwright to reunite with family and friends.

Before arriving at the Alert Holding Area, the buses passed through the front gates and were welcomed by hundreds of banners and signs hanging on the fence lining the road. Shields said the buses slowed through the gates so soldiers could read each one.

“You hear about how they have them all up,” Shields said of the banners. “But until you see it, you don’t realize.”

The arrival of Shields, Ulibarri and some of the battalion commanders marks the halfway point for the homecomings. About 1,500 of the 3,800 soldiers are now back in Alaska with the rest scheduled to return by Dec. 5.

The brigade served the first year of its tour in northern Iraq, when it was based out of Mosul. In late summer, as the brigade was preparing to return to Alaska, its tour was extended four months and the soldiers were sent to Baghdad to help combat violence.

Twenty-six soldiers with the brigade died during the deployment and about 350 were wounded in action. The unit had five Silver Star Medal recipients during its deployment.

Before leaving Iraq late last week, the Arctic Wolves, as the 172nd is known, received the Valorous Unit Award from Gen. George C. Casey, commanding general of the Multi-National Force-Iraq.

The degree of heroism required for the award is the same as is required for an individual to be awarded the Silver Star, according to the American Veterans Web site. It is second in unit awards only to the Presidential Unit Citation.

Each day, the crowd at Fort Wainwright has grown as families and soldiers already home return to welcome the incoming groups. Many families from the Lower 48 are not able to make the trip to Alaska and will have to wait a few more weeks to reunite.

Sgt. 1st Class Eric Walborg is one of those soldiers that figured he would see his wife, Ledy, and son Nathan in a few weeks. But little did he know Ledy and his 8-month-old son were in the crowd Monday. Ledy said she didn’t receive confirmation about when his flight was coming into Fairbanks until just last week and scrambled to find a flight to Fairbanks on Saturday.

“I hope it’s a surprise,” she said, waiting with the anxious crowd.

The couple have experienced five major deployments together Ledy said, when Eric went to such areas as Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Peru. But Ledy said this deployment has been the hardest for her, partly because of the length and because she felt Iraq was the most dangerous of Eric’s assignments.

But she said it was no less easy on her husband.

“I think my pregnancy made it harder for him,” she said.

Also among the crowd dominated by women and young children, Rick Hart and his two sons, Ben and Cody, were patiently waiting on folding chairs, with balloons and a bouquet of flowers in hand for their returning soldier, Staff Sgt. Susan Hart. The Harts met when they were both in the Army, but Rick entered civilian life about four years ago.

Rick said being a dad staying home with his sons, age 5 and 7, while his wife was deployed had its challenges.

He likes to cook and can tackle laundry, but it takes him three days to fold laundry when his wife can do it in minutes. He said his wife is better at many things, including keeping the family organized.

“My brain has gone somewhere during this whole thing,” he said. “Hopefully, she’ll find that.”

Hart said it was also difficult to find many families in his same circumstances. Even if there had been an organized group of dads with wives deployed, he doubts he would have found time to socialize.

Mostly he’s looking forward to just talking with his wife and having the family of four under the same roof, like a regular family.

“You feel like a real wuss when you’re stuck here and your wife is off fighting a war,” he said.

The last time Sgt. 1st Class Carl Owens saw his wife, she was two sizes larger with short hair and a wardrobe dominated by sweat pants and T-shirts.

As Tracy Owens awaited her husband’s return Saturday following his 18-month tour in Iraq, the 46-year-old donned a flowing white skirt, a low-cut top and high-heeled suede boots. She wore makeup and had a bronze tan.

Like many wives of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Owens wanted to make an impression.

“He is going to flip out,” she said.

Turns out Tracy Owens could have worn a burlap sack, and her husband would still have been ecstatic. A grin spread across the sergeant’s face as he hugged his wife and two daughters.

“I’m just excited to be home” he said. “I love it.”

Katrina Queen also managed to pull together a new outfit for the reunion with her husband, Sgt. Kito Queen, despite being a de facto single parent to the couple’s six children for the last few months.

“I’m just so excited,” the 29-year-old said as she sat waiting in the warehouse-sized staging area, where the more than 600 soldiers were bused from Eielson Air Force Base to be welcomed home. Queen’s children, ages 7 months to 9 years, played nearby.

This was the couple’s second reunion. The first was in August, when the sergeant returned to Alaska just long enough for Katrina to become pregnant with their seventh child before the Army shipped him back to Iraq for a four-month extension.

“My 2-year-old,” Queen said, “She talks about him a lot. She said, ‘Mommy, Daddy’s going to take me to see ‘Happy Feet.'’ My son, he’s grown a lot since the summer.”

After the soldiers were released to be with their families, Katrina handed her husband the youngest child.

“I missed these little guys,” he said.

The other children took turns vying for the sergeant’s attention, calling “Daddy, daddy.”

“It feels so good to hear them say ‘Daddy,’” their mother said.

Many families didn’t have grand plans upon their reunion, except to go home, relax and enjoy each other’s company.

“No plans,” said Tamatha Zavodsky. “Just being a family again.”

Many families had signs and special T-shirts for the homecoming. The Hernandez family made their signs and shirts in July, shortly before Sgt. 1st. Class Robert Hernandez was scheduled to return home and before the brigade was extended.

When Debbi Hernandez and her children dusted off their shirts and signs for Saturday’s homecoming, they had to use paint to correct the wording to reflect Robert’s promotion.

As the oldest of the Hernandez children, 10-year-old Brianna has known for a few weeks that her dad was returning Saturday. Debbi didn’t tell her two younger children because she said it was difficult in July to explain the extension to them.

“But she told me he was coming so I could start cleaning,” Brianna said, rolling her eyes. She said she’s excited to have her dad home again so she can eat real Mexican food, like his homemade tacos and enchiladas. Her mom has avoided making those kind of meals since her husband’s been gone.

“Mom’s on a low-carb diet,” Debbi said.

Other families were preparing for the special food requests their soldier was looking forward to.

Tiana Lara said her husband, Sgt. Lionel Lara, had one request upon his return: that she cook chicken enchiladas.

“I asked him what he wanted when he came in and that’s what he said,” said the 20-year-old mother of two girls, ages 1 and 2. “We’re going to go home, hang out, watch movies and maybe play with the kids.”

In late December, when the family goes on vacation in Arizona, the couple plans to get matching tattoos.

Stephanie McDowell wasn’t sure what to expect upon the return of her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Billy McDowell, who was shot in the shoulder in September and got shrapnel in both legs a month later after an explosion.

“I’m kind of nervous,” said the 34-year-old mother of two, ages 4 and 6. “I’ve been doing everything for a year. He’s going to come back and take over.”

The mother and children arrived in Alaska only about eight hours ahead of their soldier, who cried when he saw them.

McDowell’s son wore a child-sized Army Combat Uniform for the occasion.

“You look like me,” McDowell said as he hugged the boy. “I missed you,” he told his girl.

It was 32 below zero on Fort Wainwright on Saturday morning, a 102-degree difference from Baghdad, where hundreds of soldiers with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team had been stationed just a couple of days ago. But bitter cold and foggy, icy windows on the buses they rode from Eielson Air Force Base couldn’t dampen the warm welcome awaiting from friends and family.

Before the soldiers arrived at Fort Wainwright, Col. Robert Ball, deputy commander of U.S. Army Alaska, briefed the anxious and excited crowd of family and friends.

“Go easy on them. They’re tired and a little chilly,” Ball said.

When the soldiers arrived, they lined up in formation about 50 feet in front of the crowd, with families and soldiers facing each other and loud cheers echoing throughout the large building.

“Oh, he’s here!” said Tamatha Zavodsky, jumping up to get a glimpse of her husband, Sgt. Maj. Dennis Zavodsky, in formation.

Ball commended the soldiers and their families in his 37-second speech, timed by one of Zavodsky’s sons. And finally, after 16 months of being thousands miles and a war apart, the distance between families and soldiers closed as they rushed into each other’s arms.

More than 600 soldiers arrived in Fairbanks between the two flights Saturday. An additional 200 were bound for Anchorage. About 3,800 soldiers with the brigade are scheduled to arrive in Fairbanks over the next 10 days. Twenty-six died during the deployment.

The brigade served the first year of its tour in northern Iraq, where it was based out of Mosul.

In late summer, as the brigade was preparing to return to Alaska, its tour was extended four months and the soldiers were sent to Baghdad to help combat violence there.

Reunions between families Saturday ranged from seriously romantic to boisterous and joyous. Soldiers coming home to young children sank to their knees to embrace their toddlers or cradled infants they had never met. Young couples shared long, steamy kisses. Single soldiers were introduced to their buddy’s wife and kids and promised a hot meal in the next couple of days. Then they lined up to board buses to their hotel rooms or barracks.

At least two-thirds of the first flight Saturday consisted of soldiers who did not have family members waiting to greet them.

The Family Readiness Groups for the battalions had prepared the single soldiers’ barracks, supplying blankets, snacks, razors and shaving cream and other comforts. And even though some families couldn’t be there in person, many across the country were breathing sighs of relief as they received word their soldiers were in Alaska.

Molly Nava and a group from the brigade Support Battalion were busy on their cell phones, calling families across the country, letting them know their soldier was en route to Fairbanks.

“That they are on a plane out of Iraq, that’s all they care about,” Nava said.

In some cases, single soldiers were met by the families of other soldiers.

Zavodsky, who was on hand with two sons to greet her husband, also had been tasked with finding Capt. Jerry O’Dowd, who didn’t have any family to greet him. O’Dowd’s mother in Georgia had sent up a box of cookies to give her son. O’Dowd’s girlfriend in Savannah had sent a banner welcoming him home, which was hanging among the dozens of signs in the building.

O’Dowd was pleasantly surprised when Zavodsky gave him the cookies and told him about the banner.

“Wow,” was all he said, tears welling up in his eyes as he looked at his mother’s handwriting on the box of cookies and walked off to find his banner.

Even families who didn’t have a soldier returning on the first flights came to welcome the other soldiers. Sue Ulibarri brought her two children Saturday. Her husband, Sgt. Maj. William Ulibarri, isn’t due in Fairbanks until later in the week.

“But this is the most exciting thing happening in Fairbanks,” she said.

The excitement was also an adjustment for the soldiers. Spc. Miriam Apalsch nodded when asked if the event was overwhelming.

“A little,” she said. “I don’t think it has really hit yet.”

Apalsch was met by her parents and sister. Upon her arrival, she was given a bouquet of flowers and a Ziploc bag of her mother’s homemade bacon and onion perogies.

She dug into the goodies immediately following a round of hugs.

“She has a list a mile long of things she wants me to make,” Apalsch’s mother said. “This is just one of them.”

Most soldiers have many lists to tackle now that they’re home: things they want to do, food they’re craving to eat, people they should call.

But first, there’s just getting back into normal life and establishing themselves in Fairbanks again.

“I need to get a block heater installed today,” said Capt. Jeffrey Canning, who doesn’t have family in the area. “We were supposed to come back in the summer, so it wasn’t an issue.”

A new wardrobe of civilian clothing was also a priority.

“I’ve got basically what I’m wearing now,” said the captain, in his desert fatigues. “I don’t think I can go out drinking tonight in this.”

Canning said he also plans to work on adjusting to “not being in Iraq,” a sentiment Lt. Michael Williams agreed with.

“It’s kind of hard to go from sand to snow,” Williams said.

If nothing else, the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s move to Baghdad has put the first 12 months of deployment into perspective for some battalions.

“You don’t realize how successful we were up there until you come down here,” said Capt. Dave Bedard of Anchorage, with the 4th Battalion, 11th Field Artillery Regiment of the Stryker Brigade.

“Up there” is where the 4-11 was stationed before the brigade’s extension, about 60 miles south of Mosul. The unit was responsible for 4,700 square miles of battle space. Now it patrols about 500 square miles in an area around Taji, just north of Baghdad.

And it does so with a distinction unique in the 172nd Stryker Brigade: The 4-11 is built around the Humvee rather than the highly regarded Stryker vehicle, making it the one combat battalion in the 172nd that does not use Strykers.

Yet its personnel patrol in largely the same manner and face the same military, human and social obstacles while making their rounds through their area of the Iraqi capital.

Near Taji, the 4-11 has seen as many attacks from insurgents during its first month here as it did the entire 12 months up north. The 4-11 and other U.S. forces in the area saw a spike in attacks in September surrounding the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and a video released from al-Qaida leaders.

But in October, soldiers said attacks have dropped in this specific area by more than half, even though overall in Iraq the month has proved deadly for the U.S. military.

“We weathered that storm for those two weeks,” said Col. Scott Wuestner, speaking from the passenger’s seat of a Humvee, leading three other vehicles along a four-lane main route through Taji dubbed Tampa.

The attacks come mostly in the form of improvised explosive devices planted along main routes in the area. Previous explosions leave stark reminders on the road, with chunks of asphalt surrounding a sizable crater, clearly not an ordinary pothole. The roadside is littered with skeletons of burned vehicles and dark

splotches where fuel spilled or where fuel trucks were damaged or destroyed.

In the north, armored Humvees worked well for the extended drives soldiers had to make across their large area of responsibility. But after the brigade was extended, the 4-11 had to leave those Humvees near Mosul for the incoming unit. Instead, the 4-11 was issued the newest armored version of the Humvee. Many soldiers said the newest version, with its thicker armor, has served them well.

Staff Sgt. Elton Williams, 27, from Yakutat, was in a Humvee recently when it hit an IED. He was riding in the passenger seat when the IED detonated under the front tire on his side, destroying the front end of the vehicle but leaving him and other soldiers inside unscathed.

“If it was one of the old ones, we would have been dead,” he said while the soldiers were stopped at a Iraqi police station.

Avoiding IEDs is a constant task. Soldiers keep eyes strained on the road as they drive, looking for disturbed earth where IEDs could be buried and for wires or suspicious items that could conceal the explosives. Looking for the telltale signs is not easy along roads with high reeds and trash strewn about. A convoy of Humvees often slows or stops to peer through binoculars at suspicious points before making the call to either continue or investigate.

To try to control the attacks, U.S. forces routinely fill old holes left by explosions. Wuestner said forces plan to clear reeds along the sides of roads and continue putting deterrents, like jumbles of barbed wire, around prime target spots such as culverts, where IEDs are sometimes placed out of view of the road.

“You can see what a rat’s nest we’ve tried to create,” Wuestner said while pointing to one popular area of attacks that has now been lined with wire and is constantly patrolled by forces.

Diplomacy

Wuestner, a 45-year-old gregarious Pennsylvania native, calls Taji a “truck-stop-type area” where insurgents like to travel through and attack but not necessarily stay. Still, the residents are easily silenced by insurgents.

Wuestner, the colonel in the 4-11, said the area consists of two conflicting mentalities among the mostly Sunni population and “hard-core Saddamists.” Many residents believe the only solution to peace and stopping the attacks is to get the United States out of the country. But most are too scared to turn in those who attack U.S. forces.

The 4-11 spent a year playing diplomat up north, spending hours in the homes of local leaders and residents, sipping chai, smoking cigarettes and fostering relationships that Wuestner and his soldiers counted on to help them root out insurgent activity. Up north, it worked. It netted mostly dependable Iraqi forces who provide security for a mostly agreeable citizenry. But here, near Baghdad, the 4-11 has to revert to pre-diplomatic days.

Wuestner describes three stages of dealing with the insurgency: the clearing phase, or initial stage of combating the insurgency; the hold phase, or the point that attacks decrease enough and citizens feel secure enough to allow for the final phase; and the build phase, when Iraqi forces are able to take over from coalition forces. Near Mosul, Wuestner said the area was primarily in the hold and build phases. Here in Taji, it’s still firmly in the clearing phase.

“I’ve not had a cup of chai since I’ve been here,” Wuestner said in describing the hostile and skittish nature of most residents. Soldiers have adapted, though, to the change in activity.

“You adapt and survive, or you don’t and die,” Wuestner said.

On Oct. 14, Wuestner once again donned his diplomat’s hat after being brought into the fray of a disagreement about the arrest of seven local men for supposed terrorist activities. The arrests were made by police north of the area who residents said were overstepping their jurisdiction. They complained to Wuestner that the seven men had been arrested for no reason and that Iraqi forces were aggressive toward women and children during the arrests and destroyed items in the homes of the men.

Wuestner spoke with three men from the area who were relatives of some of those arrested. He said he scheduled a meeting with leaders of the Iraqi forces that arrested the men but cautioned that he was not guaranteeing he could get the seven men released, just that he could check on their condition and status and find out what evidence the forces had against the men.

The next morning as Wuestner and soldiers traveled to the meeting with the Iraqi forces to discuss the men’s arrest, the convoy came upon more than 200 demonstrators who were blocking the road and halting the convoy. The disturbance irked Wuestner. As he confronted the organizers of the march, soldiers quickly formed a perimeter around the colonel to protect him and their Humvees from the crowd swelling toward them.

“I was on my way to a meeting, to sort this out. I told you I would help you sort this out,” Wuestner said, raising his voice over the chanting crowd to one of the organizers. “Now, I have to stop and deal with this because you just couldn’t be patient. Now, I might miss this meeting.”

Ever the diplomat, Wuestner, directed the organizers to tell the crowd to disperse and that he would meet with a handful of leaders at a nearby police station.

As he wrapped up that meeting, Wuestner told the leaders about the 4-11’s experience in Iraq and how the unit had been extended to help with security around Baghdad and what he and his soldiers could do to help. Mostly, he said, he needed the residents to work with him and to find the courage to report insurgent activity.

But even with the soldiers’ presence and the decrease of attacks in the last month, Wuestner said his brand of diplomacy doesn’t net quick results, and he knows it.

“If I had something to tell people, it would be this war isn’t going away,” he said. “It’s not like your bad relatives you just don’t invite to Thanksgiving dinner anymore. I just believe we have a lot of things to do.”

The questions on the minds of families and soldiers in July were direct and centered on one word: “Why?”

“Why was the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team being kept in Iraq for up to 120 days beyond the year it was about to wrap up in northern and western Iraq?”

“Why were the soldiers of the 172nd being sent to Baghdad?”

Happiness did not accompany the announcement of the extension, both when it was received by families and when it was delivered to the 172nd in Iraq.

Now, about halfway through the overtime period, soldiers say they appreciate that commanders haven’t tried to portray the soldiers as pleased about the extension. They say that while morale has suffered, it hasn’t affected their work.

“If they want to do it right, they need us, a Stryker brigade,” said Sgt. Brian Patton from Texas, drawing on a cigarette early one day while waiting for his platoon with the 4th Battalion 23rd Infantry Regiment, part of the 172nd, to get ready for patrol in Baghdad. “We could’ve, should’ve, come months ago.”

By the time the 172nd was scheduled to leave Iraq in August, soldiers had spent a year battling insurgents and training Iraqi forces in the northern city of Mosul and in the western rural areas near the Syrian border. Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, was one of the country’s most violent places during the war’s first years. Soldiers said they saw a marked difference in security and development as a result of their time in that region of Iraq.

And then, having achieved that success, they were shipped to Baghdad amid new and broader violence. The trip back to Alaska would have to wait.

Commanders said the mission was to aid the U.S. troops already in the capital by lending soldiers and assets to the fight, namely the Stryker vehicle. Many soldiers said it’s the vehicle and the brigade’s year of experience that gives them an edge in this city.

“You can’t substitute that experience,” said Lt. Col. Chuck Webster, with the 2nd Battalion 1st Infantry Regiment, speaking from his sparse office on Forward Operating Base Taji, north of Baghdad. The office of the 45-year-old colonel has nothing but a map of Baghdad on its pale walls, lending to a sense of only temporary placement.

Getting the Strykers’ experience into Baghdad, however, meant a sudden and, for many, disappointing change of plans for soldiers who had expected to soon be out of a war zone.

No one, not even the commanders, downplays the disappointment that soldiers experienced upon hearing of the extension.

Capt. Steve Dunn, chaplain with the 2-1, said he spent several days leading up to the announcement trying to squash rumors that he believed were incorrect.

“Rumors were running amok,” he said speaking from his quarters that serve as his room and counseling office, just off a small chapel fashioned for the 2-1 soldiers with salvaged lawn chairs, plywood walls and handmade benches that serve as pews. The altar is a cloth over a stack of small storage containers and topped with a small, white marble cross Dunn brought from Mosul.

“They called me the fireman, going around trying to tell people it wasn’t true,”

The battalions were called into a formation and given the news.

“There was a sense of relief,” Dunn said. “Pain mixed with relief when we found out.”

Soldiers bristle at the way the media was involved in the announcement. Many believe the brigade commanders told soldiers as soon as they received news.

But soldiers were not pleased that their families found out from television and newspapers before hearing from them personally.

“If we would have been told before CNN told us, it would have been better,” said Pfc. Erich Mattice, from Canton, N.Y., with the support battalion riding a bus back to Camp Stryker after lunch last week.

“If we had been told before our families, it would have better,” replied another soldier.

Dunn said the reactions varied among soldiers and family members. “Everyone has their own heartache,” he said.

Dunn communicates with families of the 2-1 each month with a newsletter he compiles. In July, he penned what he thought would be the last newsletter from Iraq and started it; “Hard to believe — but from where we sit right now the Task Force should be home in just a few short weeks!”

The newsletter had already been sent to Alaska but not distributed to families when the extension was announced. Dunn set to work writing a new version, addressing the emotions families and soldiers were experiencing.

“You need to understand your emotions for what they are, a byproduct of grief and bereavement — you are in fact mourning the loss of a dream,” Dunn wrote. “The dream of your family being together again. (But) your dream to have your family back together again isn’t dead — it’s postponed.”

As Dunn sat in his room, a room fashioned with plywood desks he built himself and a metal locker he salvaged so he could use magnets to hang pictures of his wife and two sons, he flipped through old newsletters and photos from the brigade’s last days in Mosul. He said the worry that exists between families and soldiers is one of the hardest aspects of the extension.

“The families are worried about us, and we are overcome with how this affects our family,” he said.

Spc. Brooke Miles said soldiers are upset by the extension but have reacted better than commanders, the public and family members thought they would and have adapted.

“I know brigade hates it just as much as we do,” Miles, a 20-year-old medic from Washington state, said while she was riding the bus back to Camp Stryker with a group of soldiers. “But I think we’re stronger than they think we are.”

While the extra 120 days has made the soldiers more cynical and brusque, many say they’ve thrown themselves into their work and patrols in order to stave off boredom and make time go quickly. Others said they figure the harder they work, the better chance they have of getting home sooner.

“If we just sit on our asses and don’t do our jobs, we won’t get home at all,” Sgt. Kirby Neal of Texas said after lunch last week.

The brigade had a big adjustment in a short period of time when it came to Baghdad.

Most of the work keeping the brigade busy is different from its work over the first 12 months. Here, it’s about presence, which means positioning Stryker vehicles in neighborhoods for an immediate impact.

Soldiers also help in other operations, such as house clearings and sniffing out weapons caches. The Stryker brigade’s 1st Battalion 17th Infantry Regiment alone has cleared more than 26,000 houses in two months.

The 172nd isn’t the only brigade in Baghdad, a vastly different situation from Mosul, where it was the major presence and took a year to get to know one specific area. Baghdad has six other brigades, all sharing battle space and each with a unique way of doing things.

Last week, sitting in his office, a subdued Lt. Col. Al Kelly, commander of the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment used a large, colored wall map to point out the half dozen neighborhoods around Baghdad where his soldiers have patrolled or conducted sweeps in over the last two months.

“Do I think the extension has been worthwhile? Yes,” the 45-year-old North Carolinian said. “But if I were an American citizen reading about the violence I’d think, ‘What a waste.’ But what they don’t see is wherever we go, the violence stops while we’re there.

We touched a lot of lives. My hope is that those lives we touched, they remember what we did here.”