Home » Archives » "Familiar yet tough times for Stryker families"

Familiar yet tough times for Stryker families

Jul- 5-2006 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

Link to Full Article
MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

They’ve stocked up on small boxes and U.S. Customs forms, the essential items for sending care packages overseas.

They’ve made video recordings of their soldiers reading their kids’ favorite bedtime stories.

They leave their computer speakers turned up as high as they’ll go, in case they’re down in the laundry room, or fast asleep, when their soldier comes online.

Home-front veterans say they learned a lot about coping with the worry and stress the last time their soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, were in Iraq.

And now they’re gearing up to do it all again.

“I have asked all my military friends the same question: ‘Doesn’t it seem harder this time?’” said Heidi Shepherd of Fort Lewis, whose husband deployed 10 days ago. “And everyone’s answer has been the same: ‘It IS harder this time.’”

About half of the Fort Lewis-based brigade’s 4,000 soldiers are veterans of the first trip, when the Army’s original Stryker brigade was deployed from November 2003 to October 2004.

The last batch of troops left for trip No. 2 over the past weekend. They’re expected to replace an Alaska-based Stryker brigade in Mosul –their main location last time – and in western Iraq over the next several weeks.

Back home, they’re supported by a cast of thousands of family members across the country. About three dozen responded to a News Tribune inquiry via e-mail.

Many, like Shepherd, said they feel better prepared this time, but that just knowing what they’ll have to go through doesn’t make it easier.

There are the obvious worst-case fears.[...]


Advertisements