UPDATED: Homecoming ceremonies originally scheduled for Thursday night at Fort Campbell have been pushed back a day. The first flight returns from Afghanistan Friday afternoon. Many soldiers come home to wives who’ve become accustomed to the cycle of deployments.
When Barbara Wright’s husband steps off the plane, he will have completed his third tour of duty and she will be able to stop worrying about whether her husband would return alive. He’s a chaplain who counsels soldiers on the frontline.
“He has gone into the operating room with a few of them, so what he has experienced and what he has seen I’m sure is very, very tough and I can’t even begin to go there. But by the same token, I think it’s his faith that helps him get through and helps me get through.”
“You cry in the shower,” Wright says. “Then you get out and go about your business.”
The past year has been the most deadly for the 101st Airborne in the post-Vietnam era. Since March, 105 soldiers have died.
Even with the uptick in violence, Heidi Konieczny says she’s spent less time worrying about her squad leader husband. She has a baby to think about.
“It was easier for me because she keeps me extremely busy, but its hard on him since he left when she was almost four months old.”
Koneiczny’s husband returns to a toddler.
While the 101st Airborne Division is beginning to leave Afghanistan, some units won’t be back until early summer. Close to 20,000 soldiers from Fort Campbell are currently deployed.
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