Trailblazers return from nine-month deployment

  • Published
  • By Air Force Staff Sgt. Robert Barnett
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  The flight was announced, and then delayed; announced, and then delayed. Families on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, waited anxiously for their loved ones, members of the 2d Engineer Brigade Headquarters, to return home from a nine-month deployment.

About 70 Soldiers from the final U.S. Army Alaska unit serving in Afghanistan returned to reunite with their friends and families at JBER Sunday.

"It feels amazing," said Army Maj. Kelli Hooke, 2d Engineer Brigade judge advocate general. "It was a long flight; we had delays, but we got to watch the [northern lights] and I was just excited to get home."

The families cheered when they arrived. Some were new to deployments; many had been caring for a child while their spouse was away.

"I'm really glad, it's finally here," said Samantha Graziosi, wife of Spc. Charles Graziosi. "It gives me peace, lots of peace knowing he's back in the country."

While the couple has been married for nearly three years and had been through a deployment before, this was the first for their son, Titus, 23 months old.

"It's more emotional this time with Titus," she said. "He's ready to see his dad. This one's actually a little better because the first one was a year. It's only been nine months, but it's been nine months too long."

Specialist Graziosi has been in the military for nearly six years, she said. They married after he joined. Her grandfather served in the Vietnam War, but otherwise she wasn't very familiar with the military, she said.

"I got a rude awakening," Samantha said. "It didn't work out at first, not too well. But I got used to it. I accepted what it is for what it is. If I'm going to be with him, then I've got to be a part of this.

"The emotional toll it took before [my husband] left was really significant. This time, the only thing we've really done is the waiting game. Just sitting and waiting, and hoping that he would come home. Now there's lots of happiness; there's going to be a lot of tears shed."
The military spouse said there's been a "first time" moment they've been putting off until after the family is together again.
"We had planned to get [Titus'] hair cut," she said. "His hair's long. My husband made me promise not to get his hair cut because he wants to be there for the first haircut. Hopefully this weekend, we'll be getting it cut."

The 2d Engineer Brigade Headquarters served as the theater engineer brigade headquarters, overseeing much of the transformative action as the U.S. military transitioned from Operation Enduring Freedom to Operation Resolute Support - the Department of Defense name for the new advising mission of coalition troops in Afghanistan.

The Arctic Trailblazers managed a process the military calls "descoping" - essentially the demolition of any building considered temporary to ensure the remaining coalition bases are "right-sized" for the smaller troop numbers and that the buildings turned over to Afghan forces are safe and maintainable. For those bases not kept or handed over to the Afghans, descoping was part of the effort to return the land to what it looked like before coalition troops arrived.

At Bagram Airfield, officials identified 2,385 buildings for destruction in 2014, out of about 6,000 total structures. The Arctic Trailblazers managed crews that demolished 92 percent of those marked buildings by Dec. 1. The wood and other supplies from the buildings was taken away and resold by Afghan companies as the military emphasized recycling materials back into the local economies.

"The 2d Engineer Brigade was the planner while we were deployed to Afghanistan," said Army Maj. Calvin Kroeger, brigade plan officer during the deployment. "I left May 3, before the brigade left - I was part of the advanced party. The purpose of the mission was to work all the theater engineer requirements and the mission command oversight for all the subordinate units that we had. We worked the deconstruction of a lot of our combat outposts, the forward operating bases, and also managing the train, advise and assist mission with the national engineer brigade in Afghanistan. Those were the Afghan engineers that were out there. They also conducted an in-depth partnership with the national engineer brigade leadership."

Their job was ultimately to downsize U.S. involvement and build up the Afghan capability, he said.

"They worked a culminating training exercise that really showed Afghan engineers' ability to go out, build a bridge, cross that gap, and also establish a self-sustaining camp and work on the specialty skill of building the bridge," he said. "This was all Afghan-led. It showed their ability to sustain themselves and continue to set the standard for everybody there."

Now that loved ones are back and families are reunited, reintegration can begin.

For Jeremiah Hooke, stay-at-home father of three children ages three, six and 11, this is part of the routine as his wife returned from another deployment. The family has been in the military for about 15 years. He and Kelli met when she was in ROTC as a cadet and he was in the Army Reserve. They served two deployments before having children, and two deployments with children.

"I don't think you ever really get used to [deployments]," he said. "She was gone for five months before this deployment, for [professional development]. Then she was back for a month before going to Afghanistan. There's the emotional and then the physical [connection] that you miss, and then there's the helping out with the kids and spending time with them, tag-teaming."

He kept the family busy while his wife was away.

"We did lots of camping and that kind of stuff," he said. "We like the outdoors. She missed that. She missed last winter at the [course]; it was a pretty decent winter. She's not missing anything yet this year, it hasn't really started yet. When it eventually does snow, we'll be taking advantage of it. I figured she'll take it easy when she gets home; tell us what she'd like to do. She has a personality where she doesn't like to sit still very often. I like to let her do what she wants to do while we keep our routine, and when she wants to reintegrate back, she will. We'll just leave it open for her to find where she wants to be. "

For Judylyn Moncayo, an employee at a restaurant on base, deployments are routine after 14 years in the military, but that doesn't mean she's any less excited for her loved one's return.

"He's deployed three times - twice in Iraq," she said. "I knew what I signed up for. We're kind of used to it. We've been a lot of places: Oklahoma, Fort Hood and Fort Bliss in Texas, and here. I cooked Filipino dishes that he likes. We're having a small party. We've been waiting, and now finally, we're excited. I'm glad they're all safe, no problems happened."