Troops in Virginia come home to cheers, hugs, thanks

Troops in Virginia come home to cheers, hugs, thanks
By JEFF LESTER

After a year of separation and weeks of final uncertainty about their arrival date and time, Sgt. John McArthur of the Virginia Army National Guard’s Bravo Company, 276th Engineer Battalion, confirmed that roughly 140 soldiers of the unit would finally return to Virginia on Feb. 23, slightly less than one year after the battalion put boots on the ground in northern Iraq. By 4 p.m. on the 23rd, several hundred wives, girlfriends, kids, parents, grandparents and other well-wishers had converged on Bravo Company’s armory beside the Southwest Virginia Community College campus.

American flags and flags representing all branches of the military lined the road from the campus main entrance to the armory, along with the POW-MIA flag and a flag commemorating the first Iraq war in 1990-91.

The Richlands High School Band warmed up at the armory’s back entrance, where the troops would enter. In front, families stood vigil, staring down the steep hill overlooking U.S. 19, where chartered buses carrying the soldiers would arrive.

The troops left Ft. Dix, N.J. before sunrise. Now, they had already reached Tazewell. They had looped through Bluefield to receive welcome-home greetings from citizens, and would roll through Tazewell and Richlands on their way south to Wardell.

The roughly 40-mile route from Bluefield was dotted with yellow ribbons, balloons and signs reading WELCOME HOME 276TH, THANK YOU, and JOB WELL DONE.

Amid the crowd standing in the parking lot were Bill and Kathy Corbett, who may have traveled farther than anyone to see their son step off the bus. “We left at 2 a.m. to get here,” Kathy Corbett said.

A few years ago, Andy Corbett left his home in Poquoson, near Newport News, to attend the University of Virginia’s College at Wise.

On Sept. 10, 2001, Corbett and some buddies had an encounter that later seemed like some kind of sign, his mother explained. They spotted a broken-down Humvee and helped fix it, she said.

After the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Corbett and five of his Gamma Chi Omega fraternity brothers joined the National Guard’s 189th Engineer Co. at Big Stone Gap – Rian Crabtree, T.J. Richey, Dean Schwartz, Joel Williamson and Todd Winstanley.

The UVa-Wise soldiers were among 45 troops from the 189th who got reassigned to the 276th in late 2003 for service in Iraq.

As Kathy Corbett told the story, a red Mazda sports car with Purple Heart license plates pulled into the parking lot.

Out stepped Schwartz, wearing jeans and a ballcap, grinning broadly and walking with a slight limp. Following along were nine other young men in civilian clothes, fellow Gamma Chi Omega brothers.

Schwartz was the first soldier to come home, in May.

Just two months after the battalion arrived in Mosul, Iraq, his unit was on a mission in the city to fill a bomb-blasted crater in a road. As the crew set up a defensive perimeter, a rocket-propelled grenade ripped through his truck, severing Schwartz’s left leg at the knee.

As he was being evacuated, as he tried out a prosthetic leg in a stateside hospital, as he began to regain his civilian life, Schwartz promised he’d be standing there to greet his battle buddies when they returned.

Schwartz and the frat brothers stopped long enough to pose for a few pictures and talk with the Corbetts. By now, the time was 4:45.

Suddenly, a few cheers erupted into a rising roar of excitement. Three buses were in sight, turning toward the armory.

The crowd outside rushed the front doors of the armory, crowding into a gymnasium-sized room where several hundred people already waited. Wives and girlfriends strained to see through the back door of the armory while children hopped up and down, watching for fathers.

The band struck up a tune. A woman shouted, “There he is!”

Dozens of soldiers in desert camouflage uniforms strode toward the crowd blocking the door, their weary faces rising to smiles as they entered the building. Soldiers and family members craned their necks, looking for one another.

Soldiers waded into the crowd, finding handshakes, hugs and kisses. Tears mingled with smiles, laughter and shouts of joy. Camera flashes blazed. One soldier walked around holding the hand of a little boy who clutched a tiny American flag. Kids ran everywhere with identical flags and balloons.

Schwartz found his battle buddies, hugging Corbett, Crabtree, Richey, Williamson and Winstanley and posing for several photographers.

At well over 6 feet tall, two soldiers stood in the middle of the big room at least a head’s height above the mass of people. Sgt. Robert Spears of Appalachia and his father-in-law, Sgt. David Taylor of Pound, scanned the crowd.

Halfway across the room, Sarah Spears, family support group coordinator for the 189th, said, “Have you seen my husband yet?” A second later, she spotted him and her stepfather. Soon, Spears was holding his son Walt, who was born while his father was away. Their nearly identical blue eyes gleamed.

At 5:10, the company commander, Capt. Chris Dunn, stepped onto a makeshift stage at one end of the room and thanked the crowd. He asked them to spend another 10 minutes reuniting, then he would have to borrow his troops for a few minutes.

In fact, soldiers and loved ones kept mingling for at least 20 more minutes before Dunn and his sergeants rounded up the troops.

They finished unloading the buses, then mustered one last formation at attention before calling it a day.

Sergeants gave their soldiers instructions for the next morning, greeted by a shout of HOOAAAAH, and the troops began filing out of the armory with their families.

TRIBUTES

An equally huge crowd of family members, friends and local officials returned to the armory the next morning for a barbecue lunch and celebration.

Again, Dunn took the stage. “There’s no better place than the United States of America,” he said. Freedom is purchased not by teachers, judges or businesspeople, but by soldiers, he said.

Unless you’ve worn the uniform, you can never truly know what these men have done, Griffith said.

HOOOAAAAH! the troops shouted.

After the families began lining up for food, Col. Meade noted that the 276th is the last of several Virginia Army National Guard units to return from duty in Iraq. More than 1,000 citizen-soldiers have served there, he said.

Meade agreed that the general public might not understand all the duties, hardships and dangers the 276th Engineer Battalion faced in Iraq.

The troops built security facilities along the Syrian border, he said. They rebuilt soccer fields, schools and other buildings. They guarded bridges in Mosul. They erected the traffic barriers and wire barricades for most government and military compounds in the region.

And they patrolled city streets, helping regular Army troops look for enemy fighters. Soldiers of the 276th would run ahead of 2nd Infantry Division convoys, checking for and destroying improvised explosive devices, he said.

Many soldiers of the 276th were wounded in action. Two from a Fredericksburg-area unit, Nicholas Mason and David Ruhren, were killed in the Dec. 21, 2004 suicide attack that ripped through the unit’s dining facility. Helping their families come to terms with the loss “was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Meade said.

What makes him proudest, the colonel said, “is that our troops stood shoulder to shoulder with the active-duty component.”

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VT is proud to spotlight the return of our Heroes!  We will be profiling a number of states as our troops return.