Dorothy Rowley, The Examiner
2008-04-07 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

BALTIMORE -

Tears of relief, smiles, hugs and cheers of gratitude awaited members of the 58th Infantry Brigade Combat Team who returned home Sunday after a nine-month deployment in Iraq.

“It’s exciting, just great to be back,” Maj. Ron Wallace, 42, of Brandywine, Md., said as he grabbed his daughter and buried his face in her hair. “I don’t know what else to say. My family’s here, my father’s here. My mother’s in heaven but she watched over me the whole time.”

According to Brig. Gen. Ed Leacock, who commanded the 130 returning soldiers dressed in camouflage, their arrival at the Ruhl Armory in Towson on four coach buses shortly after 3 p.m. had been an anxious time.

The trip home, including a stop at Fort Dix, N.J., for demobilization, took six days. Many of the young children waiting among the crowd of about 500 people to greet their fathers waved miniature U.S. flags.

Once in Maryland, “the soldiers knew they were almost home but they just had to wait until that last minute to come around the corner,” Leacock said.

The soldiers were assigned to Camp Victory in Baghdad, where they ran the entire 26-square-mile base complex. Leacock said that the base consisted of about 50,000 troops and civilians, and that the troops, “acting as the machinery” of the base, were responsible for everything from the supply of food and water to fuel.

Cora Crawley, the elderly aunt of soldier Randy Hurt, said she also has a grandson who was just redeployed to Afghanistan. However, Crawley said she had been eagerly looking forward to Sunday and greeting her nephew.

“I think it’s important that when our soldiers go away to serve our country that the community comes out and show support for what they’ve done,” Crawley said.

“We need to let them know we’re proud of them going over there and being blessed to come back home.”

drowley@baltimoreexaminer.com