Guard unit returns safe, unscathed
Spent yearlong tour protecting dignitaries
HUDSON - Several hundred people gathered in the cold rain outside the Elks lodge here early yesterday morning. Some chatted and laughed, while others stared blankly down the road, as if willing the buses carrying their loved ones to hurry. Everyone burst into cheers when the flashing blue lights of the police escort appeared through the trees.
Delta Company was home - safe.
All 186 men and women assigned to Delta Company, First Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment of the Massachusetts Army National Guard had finished a one-year tour in Iraq. The largest unit of Massachusetts troops deployed during the Iraq war had been surrounded by danger in Baghdad, but no one was killed or wounded.
"We were successful," said the unit's commander, Captain Steve Rooney of Nashua. "We did not take any casualties even though we made a lot of contact with the enemy."
Melissa Turner, 28, of Woodstock, Conn., eagerly waited for her husband, Sergeant Paul Turner. "I miss him. I miss him being here," she said. Nicholas, 6, and Savannah, 4, hadn't seen their father in over a year.
Turner said she did her best explain their father's absence.
"I just tell them that daddy's out there helping people. It's his job," she said. "They know that he's doing good things."
After the four buses eased to a stop, camouflage-clad soldiers emerged one by one. Each was showered with hugs and kisses.
"Where's daddy?" Turner said to her children. She stood on her tiptoes, peering over homemade signs and American flags. "Where is he?" She went from bus to bus, looking for her husband of eight years before turning toward the building to see whether she had missed him.
Then, suddenly, her son was scooped up from behind.
Paul Turner held a child in each arm as he kissed his wife and grinned brightly. Words weren't needed.
The unit was assigned to protect Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq; diplomats from the United Nations; and officials from the Baghdad Provincial Reconstruction Team. The majority of the soldiers returned home yesterday, but 11 chose to reenlist and remain in Iraq for another tour.
"It was a high-high-profile, high-risk mission," said Rooney, the imposing 6-foot-5 commander. "We were on the streets of Baghdad every single day, exposed, on the roads, in major downtown centers and marketplaces."
Rooney spent six months before the deployment recruiting and training his unit. He said their intense preparation, combined with a little luck, allowed them to get through the past year.
"It's just being a professional and not getting complacent at any time. You can't relax," Rooney said. "And then, of course, luck is certainly involved. When you have rockets raining down on you day and night, there's definitely a degree of luck."
While many soldiers were away from their loved ones for a year, the Rooneys were apart for two. Christine Rooney, who is also a National Guard captain, served a year in Iraq as the headquarters company commanding officer of the 143d Combat Sustainment Support Battalion of the Connecticut Army National Guard. She got her orders to return home around the same time her husband got his to deploy.
"It's a huge commitment, but we're both also committed to our units, our soldiers, and felt it was important to be there with them," Steve Rooney said.
The 181st is one of the oldest military units in the United States, tracing its roots to Dec. 13, 1636, Rooney said. Rooney, a 1986 graduate of Lexington High School, said the unit fought at Lexington and Concord at the dawn of the Revolutionary War.
Formal presentations and awards were scheduled for August and September, but Rooney chose not to stand on ceremony yesterday. There were no orders for formation. No podium was set up inside the lodge and no politicians made speeches.
"Grab your bags and go," he told his troops. "Go home."
Scooping up children, spouses, and even pets, the soldiers did just that.
rising
falling 