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Soldiers prep in Kuwait for return to Iraq

Army News Service

Release Date: 10/14/2003

By Staff Sgt. Nate Orme

CAMP WOLF, Kuwait (Army News Service, Oct. 14, 2003) -- The first stop for Soldiers heading back to Iraq after enjoying their 15 days of R&R is Kuwait, where briefings help them deal with anxieties of returning to war and being separated from their family again.

Although few soldiers said they were eager to return to Iraq, most said they felt the rest and recuperation was well worth it and prepared them to take on their final months in Iraq.

Spc. Joseph Meadow, an infantryman with the 173rd Airborne Brigade based in Vincenza, Italy, was the first off the plane. He was part of a 30-Soldier detail that offloaded bags from the plane as other Soldiers boarded buses to go to the briefing tent run by the 105th Personnel Services Detachment, a National Guard unit from Lincoln, Neb.

"Everybody was really happy to get a chance to go, and I hope all my friends get a chance to go also," Meadow said. "I got to see my family in Birmingham, Ala., go deep-sea fishing and to Atlanta. I went to Washington, D.C., to see the White House during the layover in Baltimore. I got to do all those things that Americans do."

While on the bus ride from the plane to the briefing tent, Spc. LaToya Lang, a shower/laundry and clothing repair specialist with the 157th Quartermaster Company from Fort Hood, Texas, said she saw her family in Muskegon, Mich.

"It was an opportunity to go home. I had a death in the family, it wasn't immediate family, but I was able to take R&R and go home regardless," Lang said. "I only have a couple of months left now. It's all downhill from here."

Also on the bus, Capt. Bryan Sims, a family practice provider with the 21st Casualty Support Hospital at Camp Balad, Iraq, said the trip home to family at Fort Hood was a chance to rejuvenate.

"It was absolutely fantastic. I got to see family and friends. I went to a University of Texas (Austin) football game with my family. The Longhorns beat Kansas State 24-20,"

Sims, a Desert Storm veteran, said, "I've been here seven months, and I have five months to go. The R&R just makes it more do-able."

At the briefing tent, the large group was broken into "chalks" according to their final camp destination in Iraq - Mosul, Balad, Kirkuk, for example.

Soldiers were briefed on camp facilities and schedules and given an assigned tent to stay in for their short stay in Kuwait before flying to Baghdad in the next day or two and then traveling to their respective camps.

"It was worth it. It gives a sense of new beginning. It (the R&R) was only two weeks, but you come back and think 'I can do this. I did it once, I can do it again,'" said Spc. Christina Perez, a personnel services specialist with the 320th Military Police Battalion, an Army Reserve unit from Ashley, Pa.

(Editor's note: Staff Sgt. Nate Orme is the Public Affairs NCO for the 3rd Personnel Command.)