70 Bay Area soldiers - last California Guard unit return home from Iraq

Welcome home soldier!

This evening from Mercury News/Joshua Melvin, 12/2/11.  "...The group -- with members from Cupertino to San Francisco and Millbrae to Hayward -- is the last California National Guard unit to come home from the war in Iraq. In October, President Barack Obama announced all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by the end of the year. Soldiers said that news brought them home about a month ahead of schedule. 

Even before the doors of their white bus peeled open there were tears, American flags, welcome home signs, but most of all the rush of relief. Everyone had come home -- not a single one killed or wounded. About 4,483 American fighters have died in the war that started in 2003, according to icasualties.org. Of those killed, 26 were guard soldiers. One of their ranks, Spc. Sean Walsh, 21, of San Jose, is to be buried Saturday.

The group of roughly 70 soldiers consisting of medics and medical technicians, was not on daily patrols of dusty streets that might conceal a handmade bomb or a nest of armed insurgents. But they lived and worked in a war zone, primarily in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Their base was routinely hit with enemy rocket and mortar fire.While the unit did its work in a dangerous place, families back home had to figure out how to carry on with lives that were missing a central piece." Read full story...

Posted by Kathy Meeh