Sunday, April 23, 2006, 2:42 p.m.

By Edward Lee Pitts
Staff Writer

The overriding emotion this weekend on the faces of the families during the honoring of the 278th Regimental Combat Team was one of relief. On the faces of the more than 2,000 soldiers, now Iraqi war veterans, wearing their desert camouflaged uniforms for maybe the last time as a group, was pride.

You could see the burden of worry slowly lift from the family members throughout the day's festivities. But the transformation in the faces of the soldiers? wives, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles lining Saturday's parade route culminated when the regiment marched down the street under the banners of waving flags and disappeared. The ceremony was over. The parade was over. Iraq was over.

Soon the soldiers began reappearing along the parade route, but this time as individuals. They slowly drifted to their family members for hugs and kisses. They lifted up children into their arms. Then many waited for the Dogwood Arts Festival's usual parade with its standard collection of balloons, floats and clowns to appear along the same route. They were a family again.

Never mind that floats honoring UT athletes and local dance troupes seemed sort of anticlimactic after the hourlong ceremony honoring those who had returned from war and remembering those who did not. The atmosphere on Gay Street took on a celebratory mood as the men and women of the 278th, and their families, could not hide the fact that their minds were celebrating the end of an arduous chapter in their lives that stretched for nearly two years.

End of Revelry

At the picnic before the parade many soldiers joked about how many ceremonies they have had to stand at attention for since returning from Iraq six months ago. They weren't complaining about the recognition. But many couldn't decide if they were happier for being honored again on Saturday or for the fact that this weekend marked the end of the revelry. They were ready to get their normal lives back without the temporary interruptions of pomp and circumstance.

Still many acknowledged that getting that life back would be hard. Others said it would be impossible. They are no longer the men and women of two years ago. Some soldiers no longer have families to track down after parades, their marriages destroyed under the strain of the deployment. Other troops said they didn't have a job to go back to on Monday, having discovered during the last six months that they don't fit in any more with their old employers. Still a handful of others marched with more visible scars from Iraq, real battle injuries.

Most troops admitted that they would never be the same. While the Iraq experience may have officially ended with an honor parade down a Knoxville Street, it will take much longer for the year spent in the desert to recede from their minds.

Stress of War

A Pentagon colonel recently told me that the six-month mark of a soldier's return from a combat zone is when many of the problems like post traumatic stress syndrome really begin.

He said the euphoria of homecomings and reunions during the early weeks of a unit's return are enough to make the first few months back seem like an extended honeymoon. But it is when the accolades and cheers stop and the routines of life once again impose themselves that many combat veterans begin to struggle. Normal life doesn't seem the same anymore after sharing an experience in the desert where Iraqi families of 10 live in filthy mud huts with no furniture, where temperatures often soared to 140 degrees, and where any trip along potholed streets could be your last thanks to roadside bombs. The world of the deployed solider has expanded beyond the mountains and rivers of Tennessee.

But troops Saturday publicly shrugged off any hints that they may be undergoing inner turmoil. Instead they talked about how proud they were of what they had accomplished in Iraq. How they were a part of something bigger than themselves. How they played a role in an event that one-day will be read about in history books. How they tried to serve.

Yes, they admitted how there are still many problems in Iraq. How the solutions may require more troops and more sacrifice. Some shook their heads at recent news reports that a museum many of them had visited in the Kurdish region had burned to the ground at the hand of rioters. Still, the soldiers said they are convinced that the sector of northeastern Iraq near the Iranian border where the 278th called home for a year is a better place now thanks to the presence of the Tennessee National Guard.

Swapping Stories

Before gathering in formation for the parade, the 278th troops laughed, cried and swapped stories about Iraq. They laughed about the absurdities that are unavoidable whenever a nation ships soldiers by the hundreds of thousands to a war thousands of miles away, taking showers with bottled water and baby wipes, being stuck in the mess hall for more than an hour while explosive experts detonate a suspicious package that turned out to be a box of powdered PowerAde. They reminded one another about visits to Iraqi villages to bring water or schools supplies to screaming children who shouted, "Mister, mister, give me. Give me," and treated the troops like rock stars.

They talked about how night raids to the homes of suspected insurgents made them strangely think of their own homes and how seeing the purple fingers of proud Iraqi voters made them wonder what Americans need to do to get this passionate about voting again. They fought back tears remembering the names, personalities and heroics of those who came back home not to live again, but to be buried.

A New 278th

As individuals changed so will the 278th. The regiment will go on as it has for years. But the 278th Regimental Combat Team that existed for the past year in Iraq will no longer exist. Soldiers have retired, transferred, or left the Guard all together.

While there surely will be other battles and parades for the 278th to fight in and march in, Saturday marked the final mass gathering of the version of the 278th that went to the desert and back. So the preparade stories flew fast and furious Saturday afternoon with more than a few soldiers acknowledging tales of some Iraqi adventures had already undergone stretching. But then a command for attention brought silence as the soldiers snapped to attention in their neat little rows. Then the gathered veterans of the 278th began to march as a single body. One last time. But unlike 18 months ago when the regiment marched off to war this time they marched home.

Originally published Sunday, April 23, 2006

Story Copyright to The Chattanooga Times Free Press