PDA

View Full Version : Local Marine Reservists headed home from Iraq



thedrifter
03-15-07, 06:31 AM
Local Marine Reservists headed home from Iraq
Thursday, March 15, 2007
By GEORGE WERNETH
Staff Reporter

About 40 members of the Mobile-based U.S. Marine Corps Reserve's 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company are slated to return home late this afternoon or Friday after a seven-month stint in Iraq, a spokesman said.

"There were no serious injuries," among the 3rd Force Marines in this deployment, Maj. Steve Taylor, commanding officer of the unit based at the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center in Mobile, said in an interview Wednesday.

Taylor said family, friends and the public are asked to greet the Marines at the Reserve Center, 4851 Museum Drive near Langan Park in west Mobile, where a reception is planned. The time for the arrival and reception had not been set as of late Wednesday, and Taylor said it was possible that delays in charter connections might result in the unit arriving home Friday.

He asked that family members and the public welcome the Marines at the Reserve Center and not at Mobile Regional Airport, where their plane will land. The Marines are scheduled to be bused directly from the airport to the center after a briefing.

"These members of the 3rd Force were based out of Al Asad in Al Anbar Province in western Iraq -- one of the most volatile areas of Iraq," Taylor said.

One of those looking forward to the Marines' return is Kristie Gibson of Pace, Fla. Her son, Lance Cpl. Clayton Gibson, 24, is a member of the 3rd Force.

"I'm just ecstatic to know he's safe and in one piece," she said Wednesday in a telephone interview from Pace. She said the families of the Marines have been praying that there would be no casualties in the unit and she added: "Our prayers have been answered."

Kristie Gibson said she and her husband, Randall, would be traveling to the Reserve Center for the homecoming reception, as would their son's two grandmothers, and aunts, uncles and cousins. Also waiting for him, his mother said, will be his girlfriend, Amanda Daniel, 25, of Daphne.

Taylor noted that five detachments of 3rd Force Marines have been deployed to Iraq since the war began four years ago and that most have served at least two deployments to that country.

The returning Marines were being out-processed at the Marine base at Twentynine Palms, Calif., and are scheduled to be flying to Mobile from Los Angeles after a stop in San Antonio, Texas, Taylor said.

Ellie