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thedrifter
06-24-03, 05:55 AM
Sailors, Marines prepare for shift to life at home
By DENNIS O'BRIEN, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 21, 2003

ABOARD THE BATAAN -- Military officials call it ``redeploying.'' The sailors and Marines simply call it going home.

But to the thousands of men and women with Amphibious Task Force East, it's not as simple as walking ashore and picking up where you left off 5 1/2 months ago.

Last summer proved that, when the Army experienced three murder-suicides at the hands of Fort Bragg, N.C., soldiers who had recently returned from combat in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has been preparing personnel for the adjustment from combat to civilian life for decades, but that mission has taken on more urgency since the Fort Bragg tragedies.

Amphibious Task Force East will begin sending its Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based Marines home Sunday. The ships then will head north, with the sailors getting their homecomings in Norfolk and Virginia Beach on Wednesday and Thursday.

These returning Marines and sailors are not the same ones who left in mid-January. They are different people -- changed by combat and by lengthy stints at sea.

Many are preparing to resume relationships that have been sustained for half a year through e-mail, letters and infrequent phone calls. Some men and women have been clinging to daydreams of life and loved ones back in the States.

But counselors have cautioned that those visions of home may be unrealistic, that sailors and Marines might be building up homecoming beyond what it can deliver.

Aboard the Bataan, Navy chaplains flown in from elsewhere in the fleet held group therapy sessions in the hangar bay, cycling Marines through 400 at a time, encouraging them to talk about their experiences in the war now, to get things off their chests among peers, to avoid uncomfortable conversations around dinner tables that could leave family members slack-jawed and afraid.

``We try to help them reframe their experiences, and to not talk about terrible things,'' said Southern Baptist Chaplain Cmdr. Bob Pipkin of Norfolk, ``but reframe it, to not traumatize their families if they've seen something bad.''

Pipkin, of the Maury High Class of 1970, heads one of three two-chaplain teams skipping from deck to deck across the task force, helping present the Warrior Transition program.

``It's to help Marines transition from the warrior mentality they had in the combat zone and to help them integrate better when they get back home,'' said Pipkin, 51, a chaplain for 24 years.

Personnel also are offered confidential talks with chaplains, but the heart of the program is a visual presentation designed to spur Marines to think about what they've been through and how best to focus on going home.

To stimulate introspection, the program features photos of Marines in Iraq shot by combat cameramen from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which was with the Norfolk-based Nassau. The program climaxes with a video montage shot during the Bataan's previous deployment, for combat in Afghanistan, and ends with a flag-waving homecoming sequence.

``The video `Enduring Freedom' shows them that this is their reward -- going home to family and friends,'' Pipkin said.

Geared toward Marines, the traveling transition show is also open to sailors. While the sailors did not experience the violence of combat, life on a warship is no picnic, particularly when it includes a stretch of 147 days without touching land as this deployment did.

Occasionally, troubles from home are serious enough to find their way thousands of miles across the ocean. During this deployment, nearly 300 sailors have been ushered into ship chaplain Cmdr. Kieran Mandato's office with bad news from the Red Cross: dying fathers, dead children, stillborn births.

Sailors and Marines connecting to home via e-mail have had tastes of lesser crises, everything from school suspensions to teens with new driver's licenses.

The shipboard e-mail is both a blessing and a curse. What passes for dialogue is actually a series of monologues, sometimes intense. Often sailors have just enough communication with the world to be spectators in their home lives, but not enough to be active participants.

To help sailors and Marines readjust to face-to-face communication, the Hampton Roads-based Fleet and Family Support Centers flew two people to the ship for the ride back from Europe.

``There are so many things you don't realize when you are in this sensory-deprivation environment where all the colors are blue, green and gray,'' said Pat Henderson, of Virginia Beach, whose husband is a retired sailor who did six deployments over a nine-year span. ``In e-mail there is no body language or tones and inflection of voice, so people forget that they might want to curb that salty language or lower the voice they're used to raising to speak over shipboard machinery.''

Household finances are another potential flashpoint for returning sailors and their spouses.

``When a returning spouse comes home, they might want to look through the checkbook and bills just to get caught up on what's been going on,'' said Tricia Banaszewski of Virginia Beach, a certified public accountant for the support centers. ``But the spouse who's been at home might take that as an affront and feel like they are being checked up on.''

The Marines and sailors also were given health self-assessments, four pages of boxes to check asking questions such as did they fear for their lives, were they worried they might hurt someone else, and did they suffer unexplained symptoms.

Those indicating on the questionnaire that they are troubled by what they saw in the war would be referred for counseling, as would those who medical personnel suspect might be affected, said Bataan Corpsman Senior Chief Tom Brown.

Marines and sailors aboard the Bataan said they thought the counseling offered was more than adequate.

``We all heard about those guys killing their wives last year,'' said Corpsman 3rd Class Tony Fratta of Los Angeles. ``Well, we've got a bunch of guys in our company with problems with their wives, but it's not like they plan on going home and massacring them.''

Infantry Lance Cpl. Shawn Sherman of Cincinnati said he thought the level of concern was a bit much but that he enjoyed the Warrior Transition program because it put what he did in the war into perspective.

``We're infantry, so this is our job, and being in Iraq was just like a big field exercise, like we do in Lejeune,'' Sherman said. ``Except that was for real with Iraqis coming at us instead of other Marines, it really wasn't a big deal.

``But when you see it on video in that Warrior Transition training, with all those pictures and music, you're like: `Wow, we did that!' I mean, it's not like your staff sergeant's going to tell you you're special or you did a good job, so the video lets you know that the people back home are probably going to think it's a big deal.''

Staff writer Dennis O'Brien is with the Marines and sailors of Task Force Tarawa on their way back from Iraq. He has been with the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based Marines since they left the coast of North Carolina in mid-January.

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=55831&ran=94067

Sempers,

Roger
:marine: