350 troops are home from Iraq
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
More than 350 soldiers arriving yesterday and today in Hawai'i are the first from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team — the main body from Schofield Barracks — to return home from a year of duty in northern Iraq.
Sgt. Matthew Yost's mom, Diane, was tracking his progress through stops including Bangor, Maine, and she expressed what others must be feeling.
"He should be touching down in Hawai'i any minute," the Florida woman said yesterday. "Our family isÊbreathing a collective sigh of relief and feel so totally blessed to have him home safe."
The group includes fewer than 90 soldiers who returned as an "advance party" to make sure soldiers have barracks and other necessities as the remainder of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team's 4,400 soldiers prepare for redeployment.
Additionally, 263 support element soldiers from units including the 125th Signal, 65th Engineer, and 125th Military Intelligence battalions, and 1st Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, are returning today.
Units that have returned from Iraq before yesterday were attached to other headquarters. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which makes up most of the 5,200 Schofield soldiers in Iraq, was supposed to start returning early this month, but its deployment was extended by up to two months as part of a bulking up of U.S. forces to 150,000 troops through the Jan. 30 election.
Rebels have been trying to derail the process with stepped-up attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqi officials.
Also extended by about the same length of time were 1,000 Marines with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment from Marine Corps Base Hawai'i, who fought in fierce battles in Fallujah in November and have lost 18 Marines in Iraq.
The homecoming for Schofield Barracks soldiers began on Dec. 31. The 40th Quartermaster Company was the first unit to return from operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom since the 25th Infantry Division (Light) left early last year on its first combat deployment since Vietnam. Twelve division troops were killed in Iraq.
Diane Yost said her son, who is with the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, has always been the type that "the party starts the moment he walks in the door."
But reality set in very quickly in Iraq when a friend, Pfc. John D. Amos, 22, was killed on April 4 by a suicide car bomb in Kirkuk. Yost was so close he felt the blast.
"That had a very sobering effect on him," his mother said. He also was disappointed with the news of the extension.
"He kind of took a deep breath and sucked it in and said, 'If our staying here keeps one other soldier alive,' then he was prepared to stay longer," Diane Yost said.
Most of the 4,300 soldiers in the Idaho National Guard's 116th Brigade Combat Team arrived in Kirkuk in December to replace the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, and had begun "ride-along" training as of early January, with Schofield troops, the Spokesman Review newspaper reported.
Sgt. Kendrick Washington, a Schofield spokesman, said the remainder of the Hawai'i soldiers still are on track to return from Iraq in March. "Right now, there's no set date," he said. "Everything is a little fluid."
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
