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Stryker brigade getting ready to head back to Alaska

Dec- 6-2006 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

The title of the article is a bit misleading since the main body of the 172nd has already returned to AK.

By Megan McCloskey, Stars and Stripes

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait — After 16 months in the scorching heat of the desert, a couple of hundred Stryker vehicles are now winterized for the deep freeze of Alaska.

The 172nd Stryker Brigade is finally going home.

The unit out of Fort Wainwright, Alaska, was in Iraq for four months longer than expected after a controversial extension of its one-year deployment. A victim of its own success in the northern part of the country, the brigade was tapped in late July to help quell the virulent sectarian fighting in Baghdad.

More than 350 soldiers from the 172nd were already home in Alaska when the extension happened — just a few days after President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced a joint operation named Together Forward.

Most of those soldiers had to return to Iraq. The families of soldiers who never left Iraq took down welcome home signs and postponed life plans, including weddings, according to a letter to Army headquarters from Col. Robert Ball, brigade deputy commander.

In Iraq, the extension brought shock and disappointment. Soldiers said morale was low for about a week, with folks in the unit grumbling about not being able to go home.

Many soldiers were just days away from leaving Iraq, with some, like Staff Sgt. Brian James, going on to vacations. James, 23, planned to trade the sand of Iraq for the beach of Mexico.

But spirits started to pick up when a sense of pride kicked in at the realization that they had been handpicked to augment the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad because of the 172nd’s success in Mosul and Rawaha. [...]

There are also a few photos of brigade soldiers cleaning vehicles in Kuwait before they load them onto ships bound for AK.


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