This Article is From Aug 20, 2010

Happy home coming for US troops from Iraq

Washington: Members of the US Army's 4th Stryker brigade arrived home in Fort Lewis, Washington state, on Thursday and met with their loved ones after a one-year deployment in Iraq.

A total of 150 soldiers were welcomed back by their families and friends.

More than 3,500 soldiers with the brigade are arriving in the next few weeks, marking the end of US combat operations in Iraq, seven years and five months after the operations started.

Most of the soldiers in the brigade will fly out of Iraq into Kuwait, where they board military planes and have layovers in Europe and the eastern United States.

The trip usually takes about 24 hours.

The last members of the brigade crossed the Iraq-Kuwaiti border, leaving about 52,600 US troops in Iraq as of Thursday, said Lieutenant General Robert Cone.

"It's just overwhelming, there aren't enough words to express how much I am just thrilled to be back home and reunited with my family. I'm happy for my soldiers, they're home with their families and this is what we were waiting for," said US Army Chaplain Captain Folauga Tupuola.

The returning soldiers were deployed in the surge last August.

It was the second deployment to Iraq for the brigade, which is built around operations of Stryker armoured vehicles.

A Stryker is an eight-wheeled vehicle encrusted with armour and add-ons to ward off grenades and other projectiles.

Based in Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and named for the vehicle that delivers troops into and out of battle, the Stryker brigade lost 34 troops in Iraq.

Earlier on Thursday, a line of heavily armoured American military vehicles, their headlights twinkling in the pre-dawn desert, lumbered past the barbed wire and metal gates marking the border between Iraq and Kuwait.

The brigade's leadership was on hand to greet the troops after they crossed the border.

"This is the end of the line for our brigade combat team," said brigade chief, Colonel John Norris.

For the troops of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, it was a moment of relief fraught with symbolism, lightened by the whoops and cheers of soldiers one step closer to going home.

Seven years and five months after the US-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama's August 31 deadline for ending US combat operations there.

The last of the Strykers rolled across the border just before 4 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Thursday into Kuwait, honking their horns and waving to the small crowd gathered at the crossing.

Scatterings of troops still await departure, and some 50-thousand will stay another year in what is designated as a noncombat role.

They will carry weapons to defend themselves and accompany Iraqi troops on missions, but only if asked.

Special forces will continue to help Iraqis hunt for militants.

It took months of preparation to move the troops and armour across more than 500 kilometres (300 miles) of desert highway through potentially hostile territory.

The Strykers left the Baghdad area in separate convoys over a four-day period, travelling at night because the US-Iraq security pact - and security worries - limit troop movements by day.

Once out of Iraq, there was still work to be done.

Vehicles had to be stripped of ammunition and spare tires, and eventually washed and packed for shipment home.

Meanwhile, insurgents have kept up a relentless campaign against the country's institutions and security forces, including a suicide bombing this week that killed 61 army recruits in central Baghdad.

It was the latest violence to highlight the shaky reality left by the departing US combat force and five months of stalemate over forming Iraq's next government.

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