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Returning home - Homecoming is more than party for two UVa-Wise players

Oct- 7-2005 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

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By COY BAYS, Coalfield.com

Richey attended Homecoming '04 activities at Carl Smith Stadium last fall while on leave and took part in a special pregame ceremony honoring wounded UVa-Wise classmate and fellow National Guardsman Dean Schwartz.

Pestana and Richey were two of three members of the UVa-Wise football team activated last year from their National Guard or Army Reserve units for duty in the Iraq war. The third, Wise's David Ison, has also returned to campus, but he has opted to pass on his senior season of football while concentrating on an exceptionally demanding class load. [...]

Richey returned to the war following last fall's homecoming activities at UVa-Wise and rejoined his Big Stone Gap-based National Guard unit which had been reassigned to the Richlands-based Bravo Company of the 276th Engineer Battalion for the mission in Iraq.

"It was hard going back, but you knew the next time you came home it would be for good," said Richey, who still serves with the Virginia Army National Guard's 189th Engineer Co. in Big Stone Gap.

"Going back was different because you knew what you were getting into," Richey said following a recent football practice session.

Richey's return to Iraq took him to a place where his life, and especially that of his friend and classmate Shwartz, had changed in a matter of seconds.

After arriving in Iraq for the first time in early March of 2004, Richey's unit was assigned to the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division in Mosul, which is located 300 miles north of Baghdad. [...]


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