Texas National Guard battalion is home to stay
June 6, 2008 – 2:57 amBy CHRIS VAUGHN
FORT WORTH — When Spc. Robert Bonds came home from Iraq on leave last autumn, his 1-year-old son cried when he was put in his daddy’s arms.
“It hurt,” said his wife, Kim. “It made me cry.”
But Tre, close to 2 now, climbed into his daddy’s arms Tuesday morning and then refused to leave. A better homecoming gift could not have been bought.
Bonds and about 90 other Texas National Guard soldiers arrived by bus at their southeast Fort Worth armory Tuesday morning, ending a 12-month active-duty tour, nine months of which was spent in southern Iraq.
The return of Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 144th Infantry marked the final homecoming for the battalion’s 814 citizen-soldiers, who come largely from the Metroplex and East Texas.
“We brought everyone home — eyes, ears, toes, fingers, eardrums, all of them,” said Lt. Col. Greg Barrow, the battalion commander. “We were very fortunate.”
The battalion operated out of Nasiriyah and Balad, Iraq from August through April. About half the battalion provided security; half escorted daily convoys of fuel, food, parts and ammunition.
“We did over 290,000 miles in nine months,” said Capt. Matt Combs, commander of the Dallas-based Charlie Company. “We stayed busy.”
About half the battalion had served in Iraq before, including Sgt. Leonard Brown, who is a chemist with the Fort Worth Water Department. This tour will be particularly memorable, though, because Brown earned a Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds received during a rocket attack on their base in early March.
“I jumped out of my hooch too early,” he said, referring to his trailer in Iraq.
It was the first deployment for many other soldiers, including Cpl. Jeramy Kitchen, a freshman at Texas Tech University.
“I enjoyed it,” Kitchen said. “It was a really good experience.”
Thirty soldiers in the battalion enjoyed it so much that they linked up with an Arkansas National Guard brigade to stay longer.
This deployment was shorter than the battalion’s previous tour in 2005 because the Army is trying to keep National Guard call-ups to 12 months total, including training time. Barrow said it helped a great deal with morale.
“We never experienced that dull period after nine or 10 months like a lot of units,” he said. “By the time we hit that mark, we were already preparing to redeploy home, and that changed everyone’s mind-set.”
The battalion belongs to the 56th Brigade, also based in Fort Worth, which is on alert for mobilization and expects to deploy late this year. But Barrow said his battalion won’t be going.
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