Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 16, 1991                   TAG: 9103160385
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

RESERVISTS' RETURN SET FOR NEXT WEEK

The Roanoke-based reservists, who come from western and central Virginia, will start flying home next week, said Lt. Cmdr. Steve Kelly, commander of the Roanoke Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center.

They left Roanoke by bus for Litte Creek Naval Base in Tidewater Virginia on Jan. 23.

Kelly said the reservists will not return as a unit. He said individual members will be flying out of the Middle East on March 21, 23, 25 and 28. They will report to the Little Creek base and then be released, Kelly said.

Kelly said the unit - Detachment 106 of Amphibious Construction Battalion 2 - was slated for duty in an amphibious landing that never occurred during the Persian Gulf War.

The threatened amphibious landing, officers said, was a ruse to fool the Iraqi army.

Kelly said that members of another Roanoke-based unit, a medical unit that replaced regular Navy people at Portsmouth Naval Hospital, will be coming home next week. It was called up in September.

Still uncertain, he said, is the return date for about 50 Navy Seabees who flew out of Roanoke in mid-November for replacement duty in the South Pacific and Alaska.

Also uncertain is the homecoming date for the largest Roanoke-based reserve outfit, Company B, 4th Combat Engineer Battalion. About 120 members of the battalion left Roanoke in early December and were attached to the 2nd Marine Division.