NYT,pg1: The New Military Life: Heading Back to the War (redeployment)

[DeepModem Mom]

The New Military Life: Heading Back to the War
By MONICA DAVEY

Published: December 20, 2004


..... Nearly a third of the 950,000 people from all branches of the armed forces who have been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan since those conflicts began have already been sent a second time. Part-time soldiers - Army national guardsmen and reservists - who often have handled support roles, not frontline combat roles, are slightly more likely to have served more than one deployment to the conflict zones than regular Army members.

And, of the nearly 1,300 troops who have died in Iraq since the war began, more than 100 of them were on second tours.

The change is leaving its emotional mark on thousands of military families. Some family members say the repeated separations have been like some awful waking dream, holding their breath for their soldiers to make it home safely, only to watch them leave once more. Some families who have lost loved ones on repeat tours of duty said they felt a particular ache - a sense that the second trip pushed fate too hard.

Among some of the soldiers themselves, the thought of returning to Iraq carries one puzzling quality: Unlike so many parts of life, in which the second try at anything feels easier than the first, these soldiers say that heading to Iraq is actually more overwhelming the second time around....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/national/20riley.html

[0007]

1. Heart wrenching!

"At Camp LeJeune, in North Carolina, Lance Cpl. Peter Kirby said he probably would not re-enlist in the Marines when his contract ends in 16 months. He had thought about the military as a career, Corporal Kirby said, but was now leaning toward being a police officer or a park service worker.

"This isn't the life I'd like to lead," he said, adding that he was getting married in a few weeks. "If I'm going to start a family, I don't want to be absent in my kids' lives."

In Tucson, Elena Zurheide is preparing Christmas for her 7-and-a-half-month-old son, Robert III. "I hate Christmas," Ms. Zurheide said. "I hate holidays. I hate everything right now."

Her husband, Robert Jr., was a lance corporal in the Marines. He was killed in Falluja this spring, a few weeks before their son was born. He was on his second tour to Iraq.

"I never wanted him to go a second time," she said. "I just started having the feeling that we were pushing our luck too far, and he thought so, too."

She said she wrote to Corporal Zurheide's commander before he left, asking that her huband be permitted to stay behind - or that he at least be allowed to wait for the birth of their son. She said she never heard back.

"I should have broken his arm to keep him here," she said. "I knew it was too much to go again."

Her son, Ms. Zurheide said, looks just like his father.

Bring the troops home now!!