Another long wait is ending for thousands of families.

Two hundred soldiers from Fort Carson’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team came home to cheering crowds Wednesday morning, and they’ll be followed in coming weeks by 3,500 of their comrades who are wrapping up a grueling 15-month deployment in Iraq.

The soldiers marched into the gymnasium where their loved ones waited to the strains of “The Angry American,” the same Toby Keith tune the post has used to welcome home returning troops since the beginning of the Iraq war.

“It’s a miracle,” Wendy Farrington said minutes before getting the first glimpse of her husband, Staff Sgt. Christopher Farrington. “I felt this day would never come.”

Soldiers, tired from a daylong transcontinental flight, were just as jubilant.

“It’s indescribable,” said Sgt. 1st Class Roy Crow.

The brigade is finishing its third Iraq deployment since the 2003 invasion. This time, its soldiers served in Baghdad and Mosul and endured months of combat with insurgents before a relative calm settled in last summer. Fighting included an epic struggle with Shiite radicals in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum last spring, possibly the fiercest battle of the nearly six-year war.

“It was the hardest deployment I’ve ever done,” said three-tour veteran 1st Sgt. David
Gonzalez.

While not trying to dampen the joy of reunited families, officials at the post are also working to deal with problems they know lie ahead.

The three deployments mean that many of the brigade’s soldiers have hardly seen their families since 2003. And the Army has learned during the war that some soldiers affected by its brutality come home suffering from mental illnesses that often remain hidden.

Every one of the brigade’s soldiers will undergo a mandatory course on dealing with the task of rebuilding family ties, and spouses are being offered classes on how war can affect a soldier’s mind.

Nate Nugin, who oversees the training program for Army Community Services, said getting spouses involved is key to connecting soldiers and families with the help they need to adjust to life away from war.

“They are critical,” Nugin said. “We make it clear to them how important they are in the process.”

So far, spouses of the brigade’s soldiers have shown a strong interest, Nugin said.
Leaders are hoping soldiers are receptive, too.

Keenly aware of past problems with soldiers who have returned from Iraq only to struggle with readjustment at home, the brass is emphasizing that troops who need help will get it. Leaders are also trying to eliminate the stigma they admit was associated with troops who seek counseling for mental illness or family problems.

“The message coming down is there will be no repercussions or reprisals for soldiers seeking help,” Nugin said.

But the worries are in the future. For reunited families, it’s time for celebration.

And with the Iraq war winding down, it may be time to look forward to a long stay at home.

“I hope so,” said Shelby Obermuller, whose husband, Sgt. 1st Class Jason Obermuller, came home from Baghdad. “We know we at least have a year.”

April 1,2008

Fort Carson soldiers bore the brunt of a surge of Shiite violence in Baghdad over the past week and were instrumental in restoring an uneasy calm to the city, commanders said today.

In six days of fighting in and around Sadr City, 36 soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team were wounded as Shiite fighters battled American and Iraqi forces at checkpoints around the enclave in eastern Baghdad.

With only two attacks today, down from a peak of 78 a few days earlier, it appeared a truce was holding, but soldiers remained wary.

“We’re trying to honor that cease-fire ourselves,” said Col. John Hort, the brigade’s commander who directed an offensive to seal off Sadr City and kill rocket and mortar teams with air and missile strikes.

Hort spoke to reporters via satellite.

The battles in Baghdad started after the Iraqi government cracked down on Shiite fighters in the southern city of Basra. Hort saw trouble brewing and last week ordered his soldiers to park their Humvees and prepare for battle in heavily armored M-1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles.

On March 25, Shiites poured out of Sadr City and overwhelmed four of the eight Iraqi-manned checkpoints that ring it, Hort said.

At the same time, Shiites fired volleys of rockets from Sadr City into the Green Zone, the seat of Iraqi government and home to the American embassy.

“They had a problem on the first day,” Hort said of the brigade’s Iraqi allies who lost the four checkpoints that control traffic into Sadr City, which is ruled by cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr.

The brigade’s soldiers fought back and rapidly reclaimed the lost ground using the firepower of tanks and Bradleys. But they faced repeated attacks on the checkpoints as radical militias worked to expel the Americans.

“In the past five days, we’ve had some very heroic work out there,” Hort said.

In one incident, a 3rd Brigade convoy came under attack, and a Bradley damaged by a bomb was set ablaze. A medic from another vehicle rushed through heavy enemy fire and pulled the crew of nine from the burning Bradley and helped treat their wounds.

When the Bradley crew was treated at a hospital, the medic needed care, too, Hort said.

“We found out the medic probably had the worst injuries of all of them,” Hort said.

In addition to the brigade’s three-dozen wounded, three soldiers from a Germany-based unit working with 3rd Brigade were killed while battling in Sadr City.

While soldiers worked to hold the checkpoints, the brigade also focused on stopping the rockets that flew from the Shiite enclave.

The brigade used unmanned aerial vehicles, essentially remote-controlled spy planes, along with other Air Force and Army aircraft to keep up constant surveillance of Sadr City. The brigade’s artillery battalion, working in the Green Zone, used its sophisticated artillery-spotting radar to pinpoint the origin of rockets that had been launched.

Hort said precision was key in killing the insurgents firing the rockets. Missiles, including the $60,000 Hellfire that can be launched from planes and helicopters, were used against the rocket teams.

“We make every effort to not do collateral damage to any civilian who might be around the rockets,” Hort said.

The brigade’s top enlisted soldier said the six days of fighting showed how well the soldiers can move from the rebuilding work they have pursued since they arrived in Iraq in December to all-out combat.

“It was an easy transition,” Command Sgt. Maj. Daniel Dailey said.

The brigade’s battalions in Baghdad have spent most of their time working on issues such as restoring electricity and fostering business growth. Those efforts could resume soon if peace holds, Hort said.

Fighting ebbed today after Al-Sadr ordered his Shiite militiamen to stop fighting.

The Fort Carson soldiers stopped their offensive.

“Our intent is to not continue to press this fight unless something changes,” Hort said.

The break in hostilities leaves a significant, armed militia under Al-Sadr’s control in the Shiite enclave.

Soldiers, Dailey said, are hoping that politics rather than rifle fire brings a lasting peace to a land where fighting has bred more violence.

“They know violence is a no-win situation for anybody,” Dailey said. “They understand the cause and effect it will have.”

By Tom Roeder