More than 3,200 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division are scheduled to return from Iraq later this month, starting a wave of homecomings that will last into next spring.
More than 100 soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team are already back at Fort Bragg, preparing for the rest of the brigade’s return.
The other soldiers are expected to come home between Oct. 19 and Nov. 2, said Lt. Col. Robert Campbell, who is in charge of helping the brigade’s troops transition from life in a war zone to life at Fort Bragg. The 3rd Brigade Combat Team is the first brigade from the division to return from a deployment since tours were extended to 15 months.
Campbell and his advance party are responsible for setting up work schedules, vacation time and briefings about finances, safety and relationships to help soldiers and their families adjust.
“It’s overnight — literally, overnight,” Campbell said. “Poof, you’re back at Fort Bragg and you’re back at home and it’s life as normal. But it’s not that easy.”
Since August, the team has held nine meetings with spouses and families of soldiers in the brigade. In those meetings, families learned to recognize signs that could indicate a soldier is having trouble adjusting to life at home. They learned about the resources — the chaplain corps and Womack Army Medical Center — available to help.
Mostly, they learned what many of them already know: That 15 months apart is a long time. Living together again, Campbell said, will require lots of communication.
“We tell them, ‘Don’t try to turn it right back on,’” Campbell said. “Because 15 months of being gone, everybody is coming at it from different angles. Everyone is going to have something to deal with.”
The advance party also is planning briefings for returning soldiers to reacquaint them with skills they haven’t needed in Iraq — skills such as managing a household’s finances or driving a sedan instead of a Humvee.
Unit leaders in Iraq are reviewing some of those things with soldiers now, to limit the amount of time they have to spend on post when they get back.
“We want to minimize what they have to do when they come back so they can focus on their families,” Campbell said.
The brigade will return to Pope Air Force Base in groups, and dates and times have not been set. The soldiers will spend a few hours returning equipment and weapons, and then they’ll go home. The next 10 work days are half-days — Campbell said soldiers typically will work on post from 9 a.m. to noon. Several four-day weekends are built into the schedule to give returning soldiers time to relax with their families or on their own.
The whole brigade is off from Dec. 8 to Jan. 7.
Returning soldiers usually get two-week vacations. The monthlong vacation was given because the deployment lasted 15 months, Campbell said.
“It’s well-deserved,” he said. “The longer we keep them over there, the harder it is on the families.”
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