For Specialist Chancy Cotton, who was among the first US troops to arrive in Iraq in 2003 and the last to leave last weekend, four tours and nine years of fighting were more than enough.
The 31-year-old was about 200 soldiers with the 1st Cavalry Division who were given a raucous standing ovation on Saturday at their base in Texas, where they made it home in time for a Christmas Eve to remember.
“I’m glad that it’s over with, that the fact that everyone gets to come home and hopefully everyone did not sacrifice in vain, because a lot of people didn’t get to come home,” he said.
Standing in a turret, he threw up his hands in jubilation last weekend as his armored column rolled into Kuwait at first light, ending a conflict that unleashed a vicious insurgency in Iraq and deeply divided the US.
On Saturday he and his fellow soldiers marched through an icy rain at the parade field here as family and friends cheered and waved US flags.
After a brief ceremony in which the unit’s colors were unfurled after the long flight home, Colonel Phil Battaglia issued a single order: “Charge.”
Moments later, Cotton wrapped his arms around his wife Tia and their eight-year-old son Tyler.
Also attending the ceremony were Virginia Solis and her four children, who welcomed home Specialist Ismael Solis, 32, a three-tour Iraq veteran.
“It’s hard for me,” she said. “I had to be a mother and father at the same time.”
The celebration was tempered by the knowledge that while the US is finally out of Iraq it is still at war in Afghanistan. The wives of some of the returning troops said they were already preparing for another tour.
“They said they’re going to redeploy in 2013, so it’s just another step we’ll have to take when we get there,” said Tricia Joseph, who is 19 and four months pregnant.
“Either way, I’ll be standing by his side through everything,” she said.
The jubilation is also overshadowed by the knowledge that many soldiers never returned. The US lost 4,484 troops in Iraq, while 32,000 others were injured, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.
The 1st Cavalry Division, which rotated through Iraq three times and has sent smaller units at other times, lost 283 soldiers there, a spokesman said.
“It’s scary not knowing if our loved ones are coming home, especially when he’s the father of your kids,” said Amanda Tougas, mother of two.
Some soldiers expressed concern over whether Iraq will be able to defend itself in their absence. Cotton fears that a series of deadly bombings in Baghdad last week could be a sign of things to come.
“I was expecting something to happen, but hopefully it gets stable over there for all the sacrifice that we’ve done, and hopefully it will work itself out,” he said.
US President Barack Obama has been criticized by some Republicans for failing to convince Iraq to extend a 2008 Status of Forces Agreement in order to keep some US troops in the country.
However, many veterans said they thought the US had done as much as it could.
The 2003 invasion toppled the brutal regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who was tried and executed in 2006, and a “surge” of 20,000 additional US troops in 2007 helped to contain a rash of sectarian bloodletting verging on civil war.
US Army Captain Travis Pendleton, 30, of Yorba Linda, California, downplayed the potential effects of the withdrawal on Iraqi security.
“On my second tour in 2009 as an advisor to the Iraqi 6th Infantry Division, we felt by the end that they were so far along we would have a rather modest return on investment,” he said.
“The war was over,” said former Marine Corporal Wilson, 26, a Florida policeman and veteran of Iraq’s restive Anbar Province, site of some of the heaviest fighting between US troops and the country’s Sunni insurgency.
“Iraq will flourish or fail, and that was going to be the same case if we stayed for another eight years,” he said. “Our war was about providing the opportunity to bring the horse to the water. The drinking part is up to the Iraqis.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number