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Monday, May 8, 2006
48th’s deployment restores reputation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bita Honarvar/AJC
Second Lt. Denny Thibault of Cumming enjoys a tender reunion with his wife, Chalete, at Fort Stewart.
Fort Stewart — By this weekend, Iraq will become another page in the history of the 48th Infantry Brigade as a chartered jet carrying the last remaining soldiers lands on Georgia soil.
That the end was near was apparent at a ceremony that carried into the early hours of Monday morning — Brig. Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, commander of the 48th, returned carrying the unit’s guidon, its attached combat streamers fluttering in the damp wind.
“It really feels great to be back,” Rodeheaver said. “When the last soldier gets home, that’s when I take a deep sigh.”
About 85 percent of the 4,400-strong brigade has returned from a yearlong deployment in Iraq. A few more flights are scheduled throughout the remainder of the week, the last on Saturday.
The Georgia Army National Guard soldiers will go back to civilian lives with images of a hard year in Iraq indelibly etched in their memories.
They came back with 26 fewer among their ranks, a fact especially apparent this week for Lt. Col. John King, commander of the 1st Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment, which lost six soldiers last summer in the area south of Baghdad known as the Triangle of Death.
King returned with Rodeheaver, happy to be home and sadly reminded of the “boys he lost” as his soldiers marched past Warrior’s Walk, the line of trees at Fort Stewart that pay homage to fallen soldiers.
“It was our generation’s turn to do our duty. And we did our duty,” said King, the police chief of Doraville. “It hasn’t come cheap.”
Iraq will always invoke many memories for soldiers. And for brigade veterans such as King, Iraq will also stand for something else: vindication of sorts for a National Guard unit that suffered a tarnished reputation during the Persian Gulf War.
In 1991, the 48th was called to duty for the war but never made it past training at Fort Irwin, Calif. By the time the brigade was declared combat ready, the war was over.
Georgia’s citizen soldiers bore the brunt of ridicule by active duty Army units. Even in Iraq, 48th soldiers sometimes felt they were viewed as second class because they were National Guardsmen. One soldier told The Associated Press that the 48th was treated like the “redheaded stepchild.”
The mission in Iraq helped reverse stereotypes about the 48th, said Maj. Gen. William Webster, commander of the active duty 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart.
“We really felt they were part of the team over there,” Webster said referring to 48th soldiers whose Task Force Baghdad missions fell directly under 3rd ID. “They proved their worth and their sacrifice in the war was the same as any other soldier in the Army.”
Maj. Gen. David Poythress, commander of the Georgia National Guard, said the “bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths” about the combat readiness of the 48th was largely dispelled by a 2001 tour in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But the brigade’s role in Iraq, he said, left no doubt.
“All that’s gone,” Poythress said. “They did a magnificent job.”
Poythress and Webster were both on hand to welcome home Rodeheaver. Many of the brigade’s top officers were there as well.
Rodeheaver will spend several weeks at Fort Stewart overseeing the demobilization of brigade soldiers as well as the arrival of equipment from Kuwait. The property will then be shipped out to 52 armories across the state.
Rodeheaver said he would return the brigade’s flag to Gov. Sonny Perdue in a few weeks in an official ceremony that will mark the end to the tour in Iraq.
But on Monday, Rodeheaver, a manager of economic and community development for Georgia Power, only had one item on his agenda: “To sleep all day.”
Poythress commended Rodeheaver and the brigade for a “job well done.”
“A year ago, I stood here and told you that you were going to Iraq to make history,” Poythress told returning soldiers. “You did it.”
