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133rd paid homage for service

Jul-25-2005 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

Relatives of those who died, troops who returned given flags in bittersweet ceremony (The 133rd provided engineer support for the 3/2 in Iraq last year)

Link to Full Article
By BETTY ADAMS ,Blethen Maine Newspapers

AUGUSTA -- For Dale Albert of Albion, the Freedom Salute Ceremony recognizing the members of the 133rd Engineer Battalion was bittersweet.

Her older bother, Staff Sgt. Lynn Poulin, was one of those killed in Iraq last December when a bomb exploded inside a base dining facility.

But Albert wanted to be sure to catch Sunday's ceremony at the Augusta Civic Center honoring the "Defenders of Freedom."

"The defenders are all people I grew up with," she said.

Poulin's widow, Jeanne, was given an American flag folded in a triangle and boxed with a commemorative coin.

Relatives of the three other Mainers who died while stationed in Iraq with the 133rd -- Sgt. Tom Dostie's mother, Sgt. Christopher Gelineau's mother, and Laura Jones, widow of 1st Sgt. Michael Jones -- each received a folded and boxed flag. Since Sgt. Harold Gray is at the Togus veterans hospital with head and back injuries suffered in Iraq, his wife, Laurie Gray, received his flag.

The Sunday ceremony, during which each member of the 133rd received a flag, was timed to coincide with the first regular drill weekend since the unit returned from Iraq in March.

Those who were deployed were distinguished by their desert camouflage uniforms. After posing outside for a group picture, more than 500 men and women marched into the civic center in single file to the applause of family, friends and dignitaries and music by the 195th Army Band. [...]


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