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Only 8 months left to find that perfect welcome home outfit

Dec- 9-2005 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

Link to Full Article (Opinion)
By Michelle Cuthrell, News-Miner

Whenever I picture soldiers returning home from war, I always think of the classic photograph "Kissing the War Goodbye" of the sailor kissing the woman in Times Square just after the end of World War II.

I have that picture framed and hanging in my stairwell, and every time I see it, I pause just for a moment to imagine what that coming-home-from-war moment must feel like. And how much longer it's going to be until I can have it.

With only four months down and eight more to go, that moment has always seemed like an eternity away. But talking to my friend Jill Phaneuf makes it seem a whole lot closer.

I met Jill four months after her husband, Sgt. Dave Phaneuf, deployed with the 4-123rd aviation unit out of Fort Wainwright.

Although we didn't actually become friends until this past August when my own husband deployed, I saw her with her two children every week--bringing them to church, running them to school and volunteering for a million Army-related community service activities between culinary arts classes at UAF--all on her own, all by herself. [...]


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