Returning Guardsman Arrive in Louisiana
By JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer
September 15, 2005, 4:11 AM EDT
ST. ROSE, La. -- Of those streaming back to clean and fix homes in this riverside suburb of New Orleans, few have come as far as Army Sgt. Jackie Gantt.
Gantt was stuck in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina raked his hometown, scattering the trees on his street like bowling pins and lathering his backroom floor in brown muck. He watched the storm on TV from Baghdad, able to do nothing as his family fled.
An Army medic with the Louisiana National Guard, Gantt made it home this week aboard the first plane of Guardsmen arriving in Louisiana. When the soldiers landed, they shook hands with Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who apologized about the state of the state.
On Tuesday, the last of Gantt's battalion is expected to return home aboard two charter flights from Kuwait. The remaining Louisiana Guardsmen in Iraq, all part of the 256th Brigade Combat Team, aren't expected to return until the end of September.
At least 80 percent of Gantt's home unit, the New Orleans-based 1st Battalion of the 141st Field Artillery Regiment, is thought to have lost their homes.
Overall, the Louisiana Guard saw 35 troops killed and more than 200 wounded during its 10 months in Iraq.
Gantt's family, staying in a motel in Port Arthur, Texas, picked him up at the airport, and together they ventured home to see what Katrina had left them.
"As we got closer I started to get scared," said Gantt, a tall and talkative soldier with graying hair and mustache.
He worried that he, his wife and five other family members might not be able to move back into their one-story home that sits just two blocks from the Mississippi River. Along River Road, billboards and telephone poles had blown down. Trees were split and festooned with nests of power lines. Sheets of corrugated tin that once covered grain elevators were twisted like bow ties.
Gantt, 39, told his 12-year-old daughter Nicole that New Orleans reminded him of Iraq: piles of garbage, blasted-out and looted shops, locked-and-loaded troops rolling past in armored convoys.
But there was one major difference.
"I don't have to worry about mortars or rockets coming in," Gantt said.
Last week, a shower of insurgents' mortar rounds and 106-millimeter rockets screamed down on the Guardsmen in Baghdad as they made their final preparations to return home.
Gantt's heart now thumped as the family rolled up in front of the squat brick home. He stepped out of the car and strolled the yard. Other than a punctured carport and a downed fence and limbs, there was no major damage.
"We're good so far," Gantt told his family.
The family lugged their suitcases inside and looked around. The backroom floor was covered in brown water and there was a leak in the living room ceiling. Nothing that would keep them from moving back in. The family began tidying up. At last, the uncertainty was gone. Gantt said he felt the first waves of relief since the storm hit while he was thousands of miles away.
"There's nothing like seeing things for yourself," he said. "I had no idea what to expect."
As his kids took showers and got ready for bed, Gantt stepped into the backyard to think about how far he'd come. A few days ago, he was sleeping in a billowing tent in the Kuwaiti desert. Two days before that, in a trailer in west Baghdad.
"I said to myself, 'This is pretty bad but I'm happy I can stand here and not worry about getting shot in a drive-by or someone dropping a mortar on me,'" Gantt said. "Of the hundred that flew back with me, I'm one of the lucky ones. I still have a home."
Gantt later traded his desert camouflage uniform for a T-shirt and flip flops and drove to his insurance agent's office with a sheaf of papers. He figures Katrina cost him $10,000 in damage.
Down a neighboring street, U.S. troops and prisoners in orange jumpsuits handed out cases of military ready-to-eat meals. An Army Black Hawk rumbled overhead.
"This really is like being back in Baghdad," he said, laughing.
Link Here
Associated Press Writer
September 15, 2005, 4:11 AM EDT
ST. ROSE, La. -- Of those streaming back to clean and fix homes in this riverside suburb of New Orleans, few have come as far as Army Sgt. Jackie Gantt.
Gantt was stuck in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina raked his hometown, scattering the trees on his street like bowling pins and lathering his backroom floor in brown muck. He watched the storm on TV from Baghdad, able to do nothing as his family fled.
An Army medic with the Louisiana National Guard, Gantt made it home this week aboard the first plane of Guardsmen arriving in Louisiana. When the soldiers landed, they shook hands with Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who apologized about the state of the state.
On Tuesday, the last of Gantt's battalion is expected to return home aboard two charter flights from Kuwait. The remaining Louisiana Guardsmen in Iraq, all part of the 256th Brigade Combat Team, aren't expected to return until the end of September.
At least 80 percent of Gantt's home unit, the New Orleans-based 1st Battalion of the 141st Field Artillery Regiment, is thought to have lost their homes.
Overall, the Louisiana Guard saw 35 troops killed and more than 200 wounded during its 10 months in Iraq.
Gantt's family, staying in a motel in Port Arthur, Texas, picked him up at the airport, and together they ventured home to see what Katrina had left them.
"As we got closer I started to get scared," said Gantt, a tall and talkative soldier with graying hair and mustache.
He worried that he, his wife and five other family members might not be able to move back into their one-story home that sits just two blocks from the Mississippi River. Along River Road, billboards and telephone poles had blown down. Trees were split and festooned with nests of power lines. Sheets of corrugated tin that once covered grain elevators were twisted like bow ties.
Gantt, 39, told his 12-year-old daughter Nicole that New Orleans reminded him of Iraq: piles of garbage, blasted-out and looted shops, locked-and-loaded troops rolling past in armored convoys.
But there was one major difference.
"I don't have to worry about mortars or rockets coming in," Gantt said.
Last week, a shower of insurgents' mortar rounds and 106-millimeter rockets screamed down on the Guardsmen in Baghdad as they made their final preparations to return home.
Gantt's heart now thumped as the family rolled up in front of the squat brick home. He stepped out of the car and strolled the yard. Other than a punctured carport and a downed fence and limbs, there was no major damage.
"We're good so far," Gantt told his family.
The family lugged their suitcases inside and looked around. The backroom floor was covered in brown water and there was a leak in the living room ceiling. Nothing that would keep them from moving back in. The family began tidying up. At last, the uncertainty was gone. Gantt said he felt the first waves of relief since the storm hit while he was thousands of miles away.
"There's nothing like seeing things for yourself," he said. "I had no idea what to expect."
As his kids took showers and got ready for bed, Gantt stepped into the backyard to think about how far he'd come. A few days ago, he was sleeping in a billowing tent in the Kuwaiti desert. Two days before that, in a trailer in west Baghdad.
"I said to myself, 'This is pretty bad but I'm happy I can stand here and not worry about getting shot in a drive-by or someone dropping a mortar on me,'" Gantt said. "Of the hundred that flew back with me, I'm one of the lucky ones. I still have a home."
Gantt later traded his desert camouflage uniform for a T-shirt and flip flops and drove to his insurance agent's office with a sheaf of papers. He figures Katrina cost him $10,000 in damage.
Down a neighboring street, U.S. troops and prisoners in orange jumpsuits handed out cases of military ready-to-eat meals. An Army Black Hawk rumbled overhead.
"This really is like being back in Baghdad," he said, laughing.
Link Here
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