ONE BRIGADE MOVES OUT, ANOTHER IN

Monday, August 27, 2007
By Hart Seely
Staff Writer

They huddled beneath umbrellas, as their husbands stood stoically in the rain. Their 2-year-olds wanted to roam, roused by the marching band and the overhead thunder. The young mothers leaned together, as if to hold up each other.

"I'm just trying to stay calm, so he knows that everything will be OK while he's gone." said Monica Colin, whose husband, Juan, will leave this week for Iraq with the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division.

"You need your family and friends," added Jemmy Kolreg, whose husband, Joseph, is going, too.

"We don't want them to leave," Colin said, as the soldiers of the 1st Brigade Thursday took a traditional farewell march across at Fort Drum's Sexton Field. "We just wish they didn't have to go."

These days, heightened emotions are rippling across the North Country, as about 3,500 soldiers prepare to leave for northern Iraq. The first group flew out Friday, and military transport planes will be leaving regularly from Wheeler-Sack Airfield over the next week. The brigade will spend about 10 days in Kuwait, then head to the Iraqi province of Kirkuk. Boots should hit the ground by early October.

By then, the Division's 2nd Brigade will be ending its 15-month deployment in the "Triangle of Death" south of Baghdad. Those 3,500 troops will return home late this fall.

Since 2001, Fort Drum has been sending troops to war on a regular basis. For example, the 1st Brigade went to Afghanistan in 2001 and 2003, then deployed to Iraq in 2005, returning last year.

The wars have taken a toll: 145 soldiers from Fort Drum have been killed.

With the two brigades shifting, almost everyone in the North County knows somebody who is coming or going.
"We are saying goodbye to people left, right and center," said the Rev. Clarke French of the Trinity Episcopal Church in Watertown. The minister spoke as he prepared for a farewell dinner that evening with a soldier from his church.

"His family has already moved back home to California," French said. "When he comes back, he won't likely be stationed at Fort Drum, so this is quite literally the last time I probably will see him. I'm saying goodbye to a friend."
Farewells bring out the deep emotions, but they are not the main events in Watertown, a city of 27,000 that has at various times touted itself as the birthplace of the "five and dime" store, the safety pin and actor Viggo Mortensen. These days, Jefferson County is calling itself "the fastest growing county in New York State" since the huge expansion at Fort Drum.

State's largest employer

Since 2004, its troop population has grown by 55 percent. With 21,150 civilian and military jobs, it has become New York state's largest single-site employer. Schools, hospitals and airfields are expanding, highway projects are under way, retail centers and restaurants have sprung up, and developers are building homes as fast as they can, wherever they can.

In the sprawling Indian River School District, a continual avalanche of new students has caused administrators to coin the word "ghost" as a way of predicting how many classroom seats they must plan for this fall. Because so many families keep coming and going, the district won't get a solid classroom count until opening day.
"I don't know how many ghosts we're going to have," Indian River business manager Jim Koch said. "We had 275 new intakes from last Thursday's count. Perhaps there will be more."

Koch said he expects the district will grow by about 200 students this year. Thus, about 75 of the new intakes would be offset by students who left.

At Indian River, teachers and administrators have learned to deal with the "flip-flop" of brigades. They keep everything low-key.

"You have to be careful," Koch said. "If you do a celebration because one set of parents is coming home, we're invariably going to have in the same classroom some sad children, because their parents are leaving."

A 4th Brigade?

Meanwhile, folks are buzzing over the possibility that the Army might locate a new 4th Brigade at Fort Drum.
"At this point in time, we're still trying to absorb the ones that are coming in," Watertown Mayor Jeffrey E. Graham said, but then added, "My hope is that the 4th Brigade will come here."

But that's talk for the long term. Over the next few days, soldiers are finishing home projects and tying up loose ends. Many spouses move to their home towns, where they have family support systems.

"You don't hear much of anything, and all the sudden the guy says, 'I'm leaving, this is my last Sunday,' " said the Rev. Greg Gates of the Church of Nazarene, which has many military families in its congregation. "That's how they say it. Next thing you know, the wife is moving back to Iowa, or they are scrambling, looking for people to mow the lawn."

Gates said his congregation tries to give each member a prayerful send-off, but many soldiers just don't want to attract attention. In the military, moving is a way of life, and saying goodbye is one of its toughest sides.
"You get used to it, but I don't know if you ever get good at it," said Karen M. Clark, director of USO Fort Drum, the military service organization.

Neighbors go and come

In Clark's neighborhood, six families recently moved as the result of regular changing of commands.

"They were next-door neighbors," she said. "It was hard. There are those weeks of missing them, of longing to see them. But eventually, you pull yourself up, meet the new crew and you start over."

For Kristy A. Pickett, a mother of two and trustee in the village of Antwerp, the next few days would be devoted to saying goodbye to her infantry husband Tyler. She's learned what to expect from his 2005-06 deployment.

"There are always moments of emotion that overtake you," Pickett said. "I mean, it's a long time. You always get to a point where you think, 'I can't stand this another day,' but that feeling passes. You get through it. You keep going. Dwelling on those things and making them forefront in your life is just going to make the deployment time worse on you and your husband."

Thursday, as rain poured down on the 1st Brigade, a crowd of families and fellow soldiers attended the post's going-away ceremonies.

'Freedom must be fought for'

"Our country and its citizens are solidly behind our soldiers," Division Maj. Gen. Michael L. Oates told the crowd. "Even as they debate the merits of this conflict, they have never wavered in the support of our soldiers. But it is necessary in our American democracy to remind our citizens that freedom must be fought for, and real people have to step up to confront our enemies . . .

"This will be an eventful year in Iraq," Oates continued. "After many years of infighting and terrorist exploitation of the ethnic divides in Iraq, they've got to settle it soon. I don't know what the outcome will be, but I know that every place where a Warrior Brigade soldier is standing watch, life will be better for the Iraqis."

The crowd cheered, the rain fell, and the moms held their children close. They hoisted them up to watch their fathers march by in crisp formation. Their time to leave was near.

"With this, it's now much more real," Colin said.

Hart Seely can be reached at hseely@syracuse.com or 470-2247.

© 2007 The Post-Standard. Used with permission.

ARMY MAY BRING ON A NEW BRIGAGE
Fort Drum on short list for 4,000 more troops.

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