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Hundreds of Fort Lewis troops home

Sep-19-2007 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

Homecomings continue...

IAN DEMSKY; The News Tribune

There are few certainties in life. Fewer in war. But for parents like Kevin and Julie Meadows of Whittier, Calif., prayers sometimes do get answered.

Their son, Spc. Garrett Meadows, 21, was among roughly 620 soldiers from Fort Lewis’ 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division who returned home Tuesday night from a 15-month deployment in Iraq.

“We prayed God would bring him home,” Kevin Meadows said.

Including a three-month extension to their normal year-long tour, the Stryker brigade troops bolstered the U.S. military’s Iraq surge, performing missions such as foot patrols and house-to-house searches in Baghdad, Mosul and Baqouba.

For some, words were inadequate to describe how it felt to once again kiss a wife, hug a grandmother, pick up a sprouting child.

“This says it all,” said Staff Sgt. Steven Montanio, 25, pointing to his grin.

Montanio was reunited with his wife and three daughters.

He listened to his youngest girl’s birth over the phone from half a world away.

The reality of his return didn’t sink in for him until he spotted his loved ones – by cheating and turning his head, he admitted – while standing in formation in the base’s gymnasium, waiting to be dismissed.

Others who packed the Sheridan Fitness Center to “hurry up and wait” for the returning troops came bearing gifts. Necklaces made of flowers and candy for Vitale Sooto, whose mom who flew in from American Samoa to welcome him home.

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