PDA

View Full Version : Marines' families cite 'more pride than before'



thedrifter
05-14-03, 06:37 AM
Marines' families cite 'more pride than before'

Nearly 250 return to warm greetings

By Jeanette Steele
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

May 13, 2003

For San Diego County Marines, it was homecoming No. 4 from Iraq, and military officials have the procedure down.

Miramar Marine Corps Air Station has a homecoming hangar, where the support staff is now expert at setting out coffee, plates of chocolate chip cookies and pretzel mix for waiting families.

Volunteers at the Navy League's booth churn out up to 100 free welcome-home signs for children to hold.

But for the families of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 and Marine Aircraft Group 11, yesterday's return of nearly 250 people was not just another homecoming.

"They were gone defending us. It makes it totally different this time," said Darla Ballard, 32, wife of a jet mechanic who has served five previous deployments.

Ballard waited with her three boys at Miramar's flight line with about 200 others for the commercial airliner carrying the troops. The squadron's fighter jets flew in later in the day.

"Because of the severity of the situation, it was a lot different. There's more pride than before," said April Ritter, 22, a Marine wife from Rancho Peñasquitos.

"This time it's only been four months, but it seems a lot longer," said Heidi Cudnohufsky, 30, wife of a squadron mechanic from San Diego.

And these people know deployments.

VMFA-121, the "Green Knights," is an F/A-18 squadron that left for war Jan. 30. Just a few months prior to that, the squadron spent a half year stationed in Kyrgyzstan, flying missions over Afghanistan. They returned in September.

Because of the short stretch at home, the squadron will experience a baby boomlet in the next few months. At least five squadron wives are expecting this summer or fall.

Cpl. Jacob Lange, 21, kissed his wife's blooming stomach on the Miramar tarmac after he returned yesterday. The young couple had feared he might miss the August birth, after being absent for months of the pregnancy.

"I've got three months to make it up to her," the ordnance technician said, grinning.

The squadron flew 529 combat sorties and dropped 839,000 pounds of bombs over Iraq.

The Green Knights were one of three Miramar F/A-18 squadrons to operate from an air base in Kuwait. The other two squadrons, and a helicopter squadron from Camp Pendleton, returned home last week.

VMFA-121 includes two female weapons-and-sensors officers – the only ones in Marine Air Group 11, which incorporates the Marines' seven West Coast F/A-18 squadrons. These officers sit in the jet's back seat and control the plane's weapons and some other functions.

Brig. Gen. Terry Robling said he hopes Marines continue to get a hero's homecoming as they filter back to the county in many waves over the next few months.

"The whole reason I came back was to welcome them and make them feel like the heroes they are," said Robling, assistant commander of the 3rd Marine Air Wing, based at Miramar. He returned from Kuwait a week ago.

He said a group of local Marine aircraft and an infantry regiment may stay in Iraq as late as August.

"We're hoping they'll get the same kind of hero's welcome when they get back," he said.

Sgt. Scott Campbell, a 21-year-old jet electrician, said this homecoming was special for two reasons: How hard his squadron had worked during the war, and how miserably hot it was in Kuwait.

"It was a lot shorter than most (deployments), but it was a lot harder on the brain," Campbell said.

Saying that San Diego seemed wonderfully "air-conditioned" in comparison, Campbell said he wants nothing more than to sit still and clear his head of the war.

"I'm going to chill out and watch TV," Campbell said, hugging his wife, Jessica. "I'm going to sit and become an American again."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeanette Steele: (760) 476-8244; jen.steele@uniontrib.com



Sempers,

Roger

Pengy6531
05-10-09, 09:04 AM
I know this is old thread, but I was part of the Green Knights for these deployments