Seven New Hampshire soldiers who spent the last year in the dangerous Sunni triangle of Iraq returned to New Hampshire yesterday, into the arms of loved ones at the Manchester airport.
Applause greeted each soldier as he rode an escalator and walked into the baggage area, where family and fellow soldiers waited.
The seven are the last of 30 New Hampshire National Guardsmen who deployed last spring with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
The soldiers were assigned to Ramadi, a hotbed of insurgent activity. The troops ran raids, provided convoy security, trained Iraqi police and staffed observation posts.
Operation re-entry
Vermonters build network to help Guard members readjust to civilian life.
The growing number of Vermont veterans (including the 400 members of Task Force Saber who will return soon from combat missions in Ramadi) has triggered concern among state and local social service agencies, including the Department of Health, which sponsored the day-long event. Post-deployment realities make readjustment to civilian life a difficult process for some soldiers. Ensuring a successful reintegration will in many cases fall to the professionals who were assembled Thursday.
'Re-entry's going to be a problem,' said Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth College who works with the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 'People have been in very dangerous situations 24 hours a day seven days a week, and you don't just turn off the switch.'
Most returning Guardsmen or enlisted Vermont soldiers, for that matter – estimated at somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 — won't suffer a diagnosable psychiatric condition, according to Friedman.
'The majority of soldiers will naturally adjust and recover normal functioning in the following months,' he says. 'For the minority of people who don't make that transition,' Friedman says, the psychological fallout can be devastating. Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse and aggressive behavior problems can destroy personal and professional relationships.
Pennsylvania Guardsmen return home with a sense of accomplishment, yet frustration.
They speak proudly about building up the Iraqi security force, restoring electricity and watching Iraqis walk miles to vote.
But they wonder whether it will be enough to secure Iraq's future, and at times, express bitterness toward the people they wanted to help.
'They're using our good will, our good-nature policy against us,' says Sgt. Bobby Walls, a 38-year-old Pennsylvania National Guard member. 'The fact that we fight as the good guys sometimes turns around and kicks us in the can, you know?'
Such are the swirling emotions for troops returning home from Iraq. Among the most recent of those returnees are members of the largest contingent of Pennsylvania National Guard troops deployed to a combat zone since World War II.
Fifteen from their ranks of about 2,000 were killed during the nearly yearlong deployment in Iraq's Anbar province, a huge swath of land that's a stronghold of insurgency. Two others are being investigated in connection with the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian earlier this year.
For the rest of these part-time soldiers, it can be a struggle as they return home this summer to regain the sort of normalcy they knew before spending a year with their lives in danger wherever they went. During stopovers at Camp Shelby in Mississippi on their way home, some talked about their experiences...
Welcome home & thank you!
