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Newsweek concludes its coverage of the 172nd's extension with the following article.
Nov. 30, 2006 - For Staff Sgt. Duane Leventry, the culture shock hit him full force in an Anchorage, Alaska, supermarket. Shortly after returning home from 16 months in Iraq, he found himself staring at an aisle full of steak sauce and marinade, paralyzed by the sheer volume of choices. “I must have stood there for 10 minutes trying to figure out what to get,” says Leventry, who arrived home in Anchorage last Saturday, Nov. 25, to his wife Kelly and 3-year-old daughter Alexia. “Do I want this? Do I want that? It took us about two hours to get out of the store.”
For Spc. Shawn Mott, it happened on his first night home at a restaurant in Fairbanks, where the 172nd Stryker Brigade’s home base of Fort Wainwright is located. “The waitress walked up to me and I didn’t know what to do. I sat there for like 15 minutes going ‘What do I want?’” says Mott. “Having choices is overwhelming to me. All I ate in Iraq was chicken tenders and fries.”
After nearly a year and a half of combat duty, the returned soldiers of the 172nd are trying to adjust to life at home in Alaska. The Army has prepared the soldiers for the big things—how to watch for symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, how to reintegrate themselves into family life after what has been for some an unbearably long absence. But for the soldiers of the 172nd, who started arriving home last weekend, it’s the little things that have caught them by surprise.
Still, the big things are what matter now, and it’s been a joyous return. On Wednesday morning, as more units from the 172nd returned via Kuwait, the main road in and out of Fort Wainwright was lined with welcoming banners, illuminated by temporary floodlights. One 4-year-old boy, Trevor Erickson, the son of Sgt. 1/c Craig Erickson, was dressed up as Mr. Incredible. “Dad missed Halloween, so he thought he’d dress up for him,” said Shannon, Trevor’s mom.
After the emotional roller coaster families went through last summer, when the Army announced only a few days before the soldiers were scheduled to come home that the Stryker brigade’s deployment would be extended, some families were not ready to believe it was happening until the troops stepped off the bus. Then the crowd erupted into cheers. Members of the Ninth Army Band played “God Bless America” as the soldiers lined up on one side of the hangar and the eager families on the other. Despite the early hour, wives and girlfriends were dressed up for their soldiers. The women were wearing low-cut blouses, skirts or flashy jeans. With the order to fall out, the two groups ran toward each other merging in a flurry of hugs and kisses, laughter and tears. Some wives leaped into their husbands arms, while other soldiers scooped up their eager small children, spinning them about. “You guys are getting so big,” Sgt. Brian McCumber said as he hugged his four children. [...]
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