FORT STEWART, Ga. - For nine months, Spc. Tracy Murray dreamed about the day he'd see his family again, and when it came Saturday, that was just how the day unfolded - like a dream.
His wife, Khristy, passed him his 4-month-old son, Christopher, who was born while Spc. Murray was serving in Iraq with the Augusta-based 319th Transportation Company. The soldier held his son for the first time standing by the bleachers of Fort Stewart's Cottrell Field.
Spc. Murray clutched Christopher tightly, stared into his eyes and whispered, "I love you."
"So many times I sat around thinking this day would never come," said Spc. Murray, 30, of Hephzibah. "Now it's here. It's wonderful."
About 130 members of the 319th, an Army Reserve unit based on Wrightsboro Road, returned to Fort Stewart from Kuwait early Saturday. The welcome-home ceremony seemed to pass in a blur. The soldiers charged out of their formation lines and family members charged out of the bleachers, clashing in long embraces. Small children were tossed into the air, and groups wearing shorts and T-shirts clustered around soldiers wearing crisp desert fatigues.
Again and again they spoke the obvious: Soldiers were glad to be home; loved ones were glad to have them home. But their feelings were expressed less in words than in teary-eyed silences and long kisses, such as the one Spc. Jonathan Somers, 23, of Augusta, planted on his fiancee, Rachel Higgins, 22, with a red rose in his teeth.
Toddlers - bigger versions of the ones the soldiers left behind - were standoffish at first, then gradually warmed up to their long-absent parents.
Later in the morning near the 319th's Fort Stewart barracks, Spc. Ebony Williams, 24, stood between her sons Carvin, 3, and Xavier, 1, each of them clutching a finger and refusing to let go.
"This one came straight to me," she said of the 3-year-old. "This one ran away from me at first," she said of his brother.
Getting home
After the reunion, many of the soldiers who live in the Augusta, Savannah and Jacksonville, Fla., areas rode home with their families with orders to return to the base Monday morning.
The unit is scheduled to spend next week processing at Fort Stewart, then be released Aug. 30.
Spc. Murray was part of a 20-member advance team that deployed to Kuwait in November. The rest of the unit, including Spc. Williams, deployed in mid-February. When war erupted, the 319th drove its tanker trucks into Iraq with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, faced with the grueling task of hauling bulk fuel forward for Marines advancing to Baghdad.
At the close of combat operations, the soldiers expected to be sent home, but were instead pulled back to Kuwait and put to work for the Army.
As temperatures climbed above 120 degrees, the 319th members found themselves working as security guards. On convoys into Iraq, they rode shotgun in civilian trucks operated by Kellogg Brown and Root, a contractor working to restore Iraq's oil operations. They also pulled guard duty at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
Months passed, and rumors of departure dates tortured the unit. At one point the soldiers had their gear packed to fly out, then were ordered to unpack. Last week, a rumor finally came true. Friday afternoon, Kuwait time, they boarded a charter plane at Kuwait International Airport and set off on a 22-hour trip.
For once, early
A stop-off in Canada was skipped, so the plane landed in Savannah 2 1/2 hours ahead of schedule. They left Hunter Army Airfield in buses just after dawn, seeing their first glimpses of America as a faint sun illuminated a blue-and-red horizon.
Spc. Murray sat with his duffel bag in his lap, clutching a rose given to him at the airfield by a United Service Organizations volunteer. After spending so long in the sand, he described feeling something like euphoria as he looked out the window.
"Georgia pine, baby!" he said as the bus passed tall trees draped in Spanish moss. "Right now I wouldn't mind raking me a little pine straw."
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Spc. Tracy Murray (right) holds his 4-month-old son, Christopher, for the first time. His wife, Khristy, and their daughter Tianna were delighted to welcome Spc. Murray home.
ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER/STAFF
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Other soldiers cheered as the buses passed a Kmart and a Waffle House.
"Hey, slow down! You're going too fast," one man yelled at the driver.
The early landing caused the welcome-home ceremony to be moved back from 9:35 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. With the 319th in formation, a colonel addressed them briefly. She commended them for supporting the 3rd Infantry Division, prompting some puzzled looks among the soldiers.
The bleachers at Cottrell Field were only half full, as many families didn't get word of the schedule change in time. Most of the soldiers stood alone as others were swarmed by family members.
Spc. Marquette Fluellen, 22, of Hephzibah, was still waiting for his wife to arrive as the soldiers picked up their bags in a field near the barracks. Spc. Fluellen said he has been having trouble sleeping lately, the result of being asleep in a truck when it was struck by a mortar round.
The specialist has been nominated for a Bronze Star for tending to a wounded Kellogg Brown and Root employee after the incident, which occurred July 10 at Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad. Spc. Fluellen said he was on a convoy hauling fruits, vegetables and mess hall food. When the round hit the truck at about 4 a.m., a piece of scrap metal struck the civilian driver in the back of the head.
Spc. Fluellen said he wrapped the man's head in a T-shirt and sought help at a nearby headquarters. The man was not seriously wounded.
Spc. Fluellen said he hopes that, in time, he'll stop thinking about that morning.
"It shook me pretty bad," he said.
Timeline
NOV. 3: An advance team of 20 soldiers from the 319th Transportation Company leaves the Army Reserve center on Wrightsboro Road for Fort Stewart. The group is deployed to Kuwait later that month.
JAN. 19: The remainder of the 319th - at the time numbering 143 soldiers, including those attached from units based in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina - leaves the center for Fort Stewart.
FEB. 12-13: Leaving in two groups, the 319th flies out of Hunter Army Airfield to Kuwait. They are initially based at Camp Arifjan.
MARCH 8: The 319th moves to Camp Coyote, a Marine base in the northern Kuwaiti desert. The unit is assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, using its tanker trucks to haul bulk fuel for a fighting force designed to travel only short distances.
MARCH 20: The United States launches the war on Iraq. Soldiers spend most of the night huddled in bunkers as Iraq fires missiles into Kuwait.
MARCH 23: The 319th crosses into Iraq in the early morning hours in a three-mile-long convoy that includes Marine vehicles. Their destination is Camp Viper, a Marine camp in southern Iraq.
MARCH 26: Iraqis launch an attack at Refueling Point Anderson, in central Iraq, while 319th trucks are unloading fuel. Marines repel the attack. A 319th specialist suffers a back injury while taking cover.
MARCH 29: Two tanker trucks crash, injuring three 319th soldiers, as a convoy moves through central Iraq in darkness. The trucks were driving with their lights off to avoid enemy detection and keep light away from Marines using night-vision goggles.
JULY 10: While 319th soldiers are providing security as shotgun riders in trucks operated by Kellogg Brown and Root, a truck is hit in a mortar attack, injuring a civilian employee. A 319th specialist in the truck renders aid and summons help.
SATURDAY: The 319th returns from Kuwait to Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, then rides in buses to Fort Stewart to be reunited with families.
Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com.
