Word: unite
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Back in 1972, when Tom Root returned from Vietnam as a 21-year-old Army corporal, he hid in an airport bathroom wishing he could change into civilian clothes before running the gauntlet of war protesters. When he and his Illinois National Guard unit returned from the gulf last month, the parade stretched 13 miles along an Illinois interstate. "The response of the community was overwhelming," he says. "We were not prepared for the homecoming...
...order and are more grateful for what was actually won than embittered by the failure to obtain what was never achievable. "We want so badly to be proud of our nation and ourselves," says Gil Rene, whose wife Denise was called to the gulf last October by her reserve unit three days after their wedding. "Well, it's over now," Rene adds. "We got the job done, all right? Let's move on. It didn't change the world, or world politics. It didn't change anything. They all still hate us in the Middle East...
...will finally have a chance to sit back and consider what has changed -- and what hasn't -- since they were last together. Many soldiers' marriages, shaky before Desert Storm began, became casualties of the war. Tom Hacker, of Sterling, Ill., marched off to the gulf with his National Guard unit in January. He came home to a hero's welcome in May and a pink slip from the hardware factory where he had worked as a tool-and-dye man. "I felt terrible about it, but the state of orders and the circumstances of business made it necessary," says Stan...
...48th Mechanized Infantry Brigade of the Georgia National Guard appears to exemplify all that can go wrong with the Total Force policy. Some $40 million a year was spent to train and equip the 48th, which was considered a crack Guard unit. In the event of war, it was scheduled to augment the regular Army's 24th Mechanized Infantry Division. Said General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the 24th before he was tapped to lead Desert Storm: "I expect them to fight alongside us. They are, in fact, combat ready...
Brigadier General William A. Holland, commander of the 48th until his dismissal last February, maintains his unit was a victim of Army politics. "There is no question I was the whipping boy of the Army," Holland said. "They had us convinced that we weren't worth a toot. But in mock battles we did well." Army officials, however, insist that the 48th suffered from deficient leadership and training, poorly maintained equipment and key personnel sidelined with medical conditions. The 48th did set one record, however: the brigade spent more time at the NTC than any other unit since the training...