Sunday's New York Times has a well written front-page story on the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, whose soldiers have served in Kuwait and Iraq for nearly a year. As you might expect, these soldiers and their leaders are tired -- exhausted after training in the desert, fighting their way to Baghdad, and being yanked off the planes at the last minute to stay a little longer. Yet, for the most part, they now seem to accept their mission. The road home will be a little longer, but these men and women feel they have to stay in order to get the job done right.
The First Brigade received orders in May to prepare to go home via Kuwait. Late last month, Maj. Mark B. Nordstrom, the brigade chaplain, and Capt. Kevin A. Bayles, the brigade doctor, gave their briefings to soldiers about the emotional and physical adjustments they were likely to experience.One infantryman was particularly honest about his situation, and his desire to go home.
Their replacements, the First Armored Division, had arrived and had begun to take over their patrols.
Then a new order came. The First Brigade would stay to act as a reserve in case Baghdad tumbled back into anarchy; its sister brigade, the Second, went to quell pockets of fighters in Falluja, to the west. Only the Third Brigade was going home, along with unneeded units, like the artillery battalions and the division's band.
Back in Georgia, where the Third Infantry Division is based at Fort Stewart and Fort Benning, families had already made "Welcome Home" banners. They were told to stop sending mail on May 21, so most soldiers are not receiving letters or packages anymore.
Major Nordstrom described the last two weeks as "the hardest weeks of my career as a chaplain." He drew a distinction between morale and "fighting morale." He said he meant that the soldiers would still do their jobs, but that they were not happy about it.
Several soldiers have received psychological counseling after showing signs of combat stress: nightmares, sleeplessness, edginess, outbursts of anger and what the chaplain called "intrusive thoughts."
"We have guys whose wives are sick, but not sick enough for them to get emergency leave; guys whose wives are cheating on them — they've heard through the grapevine," Major Nordstrom said. "And you know, the hardest thing is we don't have anything to offer them."
The mission remains as important as the battles that preceded it, for if some order is not brought to Iraq and the economy restored to a functioning state, the war these men fought so hard to win may seem to have been in vain.
"You call Donald Rumsfeld and tell him our sorry asses are ready to go home," Pfc. Matthew C. O'Dell, an infantryman in Sergeant Betancourt's platoon, said as he stood guard on Tuesday. "Tell him to come spend a night in our building."After what he's been through, I can hardly blame him. It's time to rotate these soldiers home; to replace them with fresh troops from the National Guard or NATO who can pick up where 3ID left off.
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