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This article is from the Cape Cod Times dated August 31st, 2003 By
DOUG FRASER Rebecca Mullen's small, hand-lettered sign said it all for more than a hundred family members and friends who waited for the two big buses carrying 58 members of the 180th Engineer Detachment. Those National Guardsmen were coming back to Camp Edwards after an eight-month deployment, mostly spent in Kuwait.
For Mullen, yesterday would be the first time her husband Joe would see their daughter Anna, 41/2 months old, who was born while he was overseas. For Kerri Thurber, yesterday was a reunion with her fiance Adam Greenfield. The two were engaged just before he was deployed last October. For Vicki Wessel, yesterday was the end of 10 months of raising four kids, including a newborn, without the help and counsel of husband, Will. For the soldiers, it was a return to the comforts of home after the heat and stress of life in the desert, and, for some, the dangers of the battle zone. Heat and loneliness were the most obvious adversaries. "It was very, very hot," said a tanned Sgt. Mariano Oliveira of Mattapoisett. What do you do when the average air temperature is 130 degrees and feels "like a sauna." "You drink water, that's all you can do," he said. On the trip back to the States, as least one soldier did some different drinking. "He called us from Ireland (where the unit had a brief stopover on the way home) and told us he'd had a cold beer and that the grass was green," Jim Kresel of Edgartown said of his son, Jon. The 180th is a Massachusetts National Guard engineering unit made up of carpenters, plumbers, masons and electricians, the backbone of Cape tradesmen. The unit was activated in October of last year to construct and maintain military facilities. Initially, there was some frustration over being sent to Fort Drum in New York, where they languished for three months until finally being shipped overseas, landing in Kuwait on Christmas Eve. Oliveira admitted to butterflies in his stomach at seeing his family again, but for most, any nervousness disappeared with the first big hug. "You think 10 months will never come," said Ann Marie Rogers of Sandwich, whose son Jeff Bromley was on the bus. "I've been jumping out of my skin all day," she said. Air horns and the shouts of loved ones as the soldiers stepped off the bus startled little Anna Mullen, and the 41/2-month-old cried hysterically, even her grandmother tried to comfort her with a pacifier. She, too, was crying as Joe and Rebecca held each other briefly and then Joe took his daughter in his arms for the first time. "I'm in heaven. This is heaven," Joe said. While in Kuwait, he'd received an e-mailed photo of his daughter after she was born. "I cried," he said, but "I knew I'd get home." The 180th could have been assigned to Kuwait for a year, with a possible one-year extension. It was a relief for these citizen-soldiers to get back home a little early. William Wessel looked every inch the experienced father as he cradled 5-month-old son Will in the crook of one arm. Wessel was one of a select detachment of the 180th who traveled in a convoy to Baghdad for five days to evaluate construction needs in the captured city. A safe road to Baghdad was always a matter of degree, and Pvt. Jessica Lynch's experience of being taken prisoner could never be far from the minds of support personnel traveling into Iraq. Wessel said their practice in convoy safety served them well on the trip. Some, like Jeff Bromley, chose not to tell parents and loved ones they went into Iraq. "He told his sister, and swore her to secrecy," Rogers said. Wessel was surrounded by son Jack, 9, who wanted to go camping right away with his father, and sisters Isabelle, 7, and Alexandra, 13. "It was hard at first, but you got used to it," Alexandra said of her father's absence. For the Wessels, the reunion would mostly be the simple pleasures of a family. "We're going to go home and have dinner together," Vicki Wessel said. For Kerri Thurber, whatever nervousness she may have felt as she waited alone for her fiance to get off the bus dissolved immediately in a hug and a kiss, that traditional greeting for the returning soldier that lasted long after the empty buses were gone. (Published: August 31, 2003) |
Sgt. Joe Mullen of Eastham,
one of 58 National Guardsmen from the 180th Engineer Detachment
returning yesterday from deployment in Kuwait, holds his daughter
Anna, 41/2 months, for the first time. Mom Rebecca and grandmother
Carol Ayres assist in the welcome.