Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 20, 1991 TAG: 9104200131
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. LENGTH: Long
And vice versa, too, for that matter.
If ever there was a war baby, Alison Jennings was it. She arrived in the world at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 16, a date that someday she and future generations of schoolchildren will no doubt have to memorize.
Five and a half hours later, the Persian Gulf War began.
Someday, perhaps Al Jennings will be able to explain to his daughter just why he was forced to miss her birth - and how he came to be sitting in a Marine camp near the Kuwaiti-Saudi border instead.
Instead, about all Jennings could do Friday was give his baby a big smooch and hoist her in the air for all to see, a spontaneous moment of joy that all could share.
After a four-month tour of duty that sent them blasting through Iraqi defenses into Kuwait during the ground war's first hours, Roanoke's Marine reserves are home.
Or close enough to it.
The tiring, but triumphant, 24-hour return journey began as early as Sunday for a handful of the 120 men in Company B, 4th Combat Engineer Battalion - lucky ones who managed to squeeze into spare seats on flights reserved for other units.
By Thursday, about 20 guys had filtered back to their base here on the Carolina coast. Those soldiers returned unannounced, with no fanfare from home, although many didn't mind, not after the unexpected reception that awaited them at a refueling stop in Maine.
"It was 11:30 at night in Bangor," said Mike Frohock of Roanoke. "We rounded the corner in the terminal - there were 400 to 500 people there. There were a lot of girls out there giving away kisses and hugs." Homemade cookies, too.
While in Saudi Arabia, the Marines had heard about the big homecomings accorded other units. But after being gone for so long, it was hard to know whether the stories about the support back home were true or not.
"Hearing and reading about it is one thing," Frohock said. "Experiencing it is another."
The rest of the men in Bravo 4 got their chance Friday - one place or another.
Thirty men found themselves stranded in by-now legendary Bangor after their plane was grounded with mechanical problems. They were scheduled to return to Camp Lejeune early today.
The other 70 made it to their homecoming on time. A TWA charter flight brought them to the Marine airstrip at nearby Cherry Point, N.C., where they piled into buses for the final leg to Lejeune.
There, at 1309 hours, the desert-tanned veterans of Bravo 4 took a big step toward becoming civilians again, to step off their military buses and into the embrace of girlfriends, wives and mothers.
For Jennings, who lives in the Montgomery County community of Lafayette, there also was the daughter he'd never seen.
He cast an admiring look at the infant in the desert camouflage sun bonnet her great aunt had made. "I've heard everyone say she looks like me. I don't think she does. She looks so pale."
For other Marines, the reunion was just as emotional, even if the faces were familiar.
Gordon Middlekauff of Roanoke pulled his stepdaughter, Heather Porterfield, onto his shoulders and led his family out of the pack.
"Here's a dedicated, hard-charging Marine," he said to no one in particular. "Second generation to be actived to go to war." His father was in a Marine reserve unit from Roanoke that was called up for the Korean War.
Bernie Lindstrom of Smyth County brought his German shepherd and Boston terrier, both tied up with yellow ribbons, to greet his son, Eric. "Sheba was very close to Eric when she was younger," Lindstrom explained. Sheba's the German shepherd.
The USO set up a tent to pass out free beer and pizza - the two items requested most by returning Marines - and for an hour the crowd milled around in the parking lot. Except for the M16s and rocket launchers slung over the Marines' shoulders, it could have been a backyard barbecue.
The company's soft-spoken commanding officer, Capt. Steve Brewer, from Northern Virginia, stood off to the side and talked about his unit.
As combat engineers, the men of Bravo 4 were the ones assigned to blast a path through Iraqi minefields to open the way for other units to pour through.
"We did as much as anybody," Brewer said. "I can show you a photo I took of sunrise on the 24th [the first morning of the ground war], and I didn't know if it would be the last one I ever saw. That sounds dramatic, but we were scared."
Cool under fire, though.
"We had some guys do some incredible things," Brewer said. "We had guys go out into minefields. We had guys go into Kuwait before the ground war started to do demo work."
Not bad for reservists. "We impressed the regulars," Brewer said.
Through it all, the unit had just one man injured. Travis Cook of Rockingham County fractured an ankle when his vehicle ran over a land mine. He was gingerly testing his foot Friday, saying he was ready to get back to dairy farming.
"The main thing is we got back," said James Bryant, a Salem police officer. Then he added for emphasis: "We got everybody back."
The Roanoke Marines are scheduled to return to their headquarters off Peters Creek Road about noon Tuesday, where they are to be greeted by the Salem High School marching band.
Until then, there's the tedious process of unpacking all the gear and shuffling the inevitable paperwork.
When Friday's homecoming wound down, Brewer called the company back into formation to march the men off to an armory to return their weapons. The abrupt return to military order caught some of the men by surprise, and they hustled into position clutching their drinks and food.
When they were called to attention, there was the normal rustle of fatigues and the "clomp, clomp" of combat boots - but also, this time, the "clink, clink" of beer cans hitting the pavement.
by CNB