Capt. Troy O’Donley stood on crutches and an artificial hip as he greeted the soldiers he had commanded until last April. Leaning on one foot, the other set in a cast, the 32-year-old insurance salesman from Bloomington slapped the backs and clasped the hands of one soldier after another.
His words could not have been more simple, or more powerful: “Welcome home,” he said.
No Illinois National Guard unit has taken more hits than the soldiers of the 1544th Transportation Company, based in Paris, Ill., and deployed last February to Iraq to transport troops and supplies from a base outside Baghdad.
And few in the unit suffered worse injuries than O’Donley, with two broken legs and a dislocated hip and wrist. His hip has been replaced and he is still recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C.
He came to Paris to stand in the rural town square where the soldiers were receiving a resounding welcome from elated townsfolk.
There were banners and cheers from friends and family, but there was a lingering sadness, too. The casualties made the homecoming Tuesday bittersweet.
“We’ve got mixed feelings,” said Steve Wirth, whose daughter, Stacey, was a truck driver in the unit. “Everybody’s excited, but we’re saddened by the fact that five aren’t coming home.”
When they left Paris a year ago, the 1544th never expected to lose five soldiers. It never expected to see more than 30 injured, including 12 who, like O’Donley, will likely nurse their wounds forever.
But then, a year ago, the unit never expected to absorb 100 mortar attacks or to encounter 60 direct-fire engagements as soldiers ferried people and supplies over 540,000 miles around Iraq.
And so the tears of joy shed Tuesday at the sight of the returning soldiers were mixed with sorrow for the injured and the ones who didn’t make it home to see a small town in rural Illinois come together in their name.
Two other Illinois Guard units also returned home Tuesday. But the year in Iraq left different marks on the three units. Those based in North Riverside and Springfield emerged almost unscathed, while the 1544th from Paris took such heavy losses.
It made for strangely divergent homecomings across the state.
Roar of the crowd
More Top Picks Best Sneakers For Support And Comfort
In Paris, thousands packed the square and students lined Main Street outside Paris High School, where the troops disembarked from buses at 2 p.m. after a 7-hour ride from Wisconsin.
“Some really scary stuff,” said Spec. Shaun Mitchell, 26, of Effingham, as he stepped off the bus in dark sunglasses despite the gray sky and icy wind. “It feels great out.”
The crowd roared as the soldiers lined up to march two blocks to the town square. They held camcorders and snapped cameras and waved flags. One man stood at attention as the troops passed.
Twenty-one 2nd graders from Memorial Elementary School held a letter each that spelled “We love our 1544th troops.” A group of five shirtless guys painted the names of two soldiers on their chests. “They’re our best friends,” said Tucker Wood, 19, whose chest bore the letter “J.”
But the memory of sacrifice of five young lives lingered.
It was at the Citgo gas station where a banner read, “In memory of Ivory, Shawna, Charles, Jessica and Jeremy.” It was in the tears of the soldiers who stood at attention while horns played taps. And it was on the faces of people in the crowd observing a minute of silence before the ceremony began.
A year ago, few of these untested soldiers thought they would be caught in the middle of a war with no front lines, sandwiched between a notorious prison and an airport road infamous for insurgent attacks.
“I didn’t think we’d be in that dangerous of an area,” said Sgt. Josh Cox, who served as a gunner and a truck driver in Iraq. “Everybody saw a lot of road time. Everybody saw significant things.”
Knowing the road conditions made the year difficult for Barbara Simpson of Robinson, whose daughter Christy drove trucks for the unit.
“A year of tears,” she said, clinging to a banner with her daughter’s picture on it. “It’s been really hard, really hard. Every day turning on the news and seeing another convoy hit and never knowing.”
There is always a possibility the unit will be put on active duty again, according to Sgt. Scott Johnson, a spokesman for the Illinois National Guard. But for now, the soldiers are back with their families.
“These fine soldiers will go home knowing they’ve been there and done that,” said Capt. Brandon Tackett, commander of the 1544th. “They deserve the respect of combat veterans.”
Wounded soldier’s salute
Two hundred miles to the north, the 3625th Maintenance Company marched into the North Riverside Armory to the bedlam of a marching band’s drums and their relatives’ happy screams.
Clad in crisp desert fatigues, the 152 Guardsmen gave short waves to their loved ones but remained in formation to watch a videotaped greeting from Spec. Victor Rojas Herrera, the only member of the unit to be seriously wounded during the deployment.
Guard officials said the 20-year-old from Aurora had been injured by an explosive in November and later suffered an allergic reaction to anesthesia that put him in a coma for several weeks. But speaking from his hospital bed at Walter Reed, a pair of crutches at his side, Herrera smiled often as he saluted his fellow Guardsmen.
“Thank you to my brothers,” he said. “They’re not my friends, they’re my brothers.”
After the Guardsmen were dismissed, some marveled at the good fortune that had kept them safe.
A shell narrowly missed Sgt. Steven Pratt when he was calling home one day from the unit’s main base of Camp Anaconda, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. But his scariest time there might have come when he had his appendix removed in a medical tent.
“It was interesting,” said the 29-year-old Plainfield resident. “My wife is a nurse and she freaked out about that: `They did it where?'”
The 42 Guardsmen of the 3637th Maintenance Company who returned to Springfield on Tuesday were equally lucky. It was a spider, not a gun or an explosive, that caused the group’s worst injury.
Spec. Brent Adkins, 23, of Nokomis, Ill., said a bite to his left hand caused it to swell and turn green. He said that doctors, concerned he might lose the hand, sent him to Germany to recuperate for two weeks.
Adkins came through the incident with a dime-sized bite mark and possible nerve damage. But all that was on his mind Tuesday was getting through the bouncy, flag-laden reunion at Camp Lincoln and devouring a home-cooked meal.
“I’m looking forward to kicking my feet up and watching TV, just being back on the farm,” he said.
There will be plenty of time for that now, time enough to reestablish lives interrupted, mourn the dead and worry that in a world still convulsing with terror and violence, this deployment might not be their last.