Today I began what will be a very Army weekend by going to a Welcome Home Party for Task Force Anvil. The unit I went to Iraq with in 2009-10 went back to the Middle East last year, returning a few weeks ago.
Shortly after I arrived, Dale Shade said hello and asked me to have a seat with him at the bar. He was the sergeant in charge of public affairs on the last deployment. For the last four months of the deployment, I worked in the same office as Dale and Matt. The deployment was not going well, the staff officers in brigade headquarters were at each other's throats. Dale had to listen to complaints from frustrated officers who needed someone to blame or just to bitch at. He was the lightning rod that kept the rest of us from getting hit with the thunderbolts from the hastily built headquarters we called the plywood palace.
I had not seen Dale since I left the Army five years ago. It was fun to catch up. And strange to see a former sergeant with shoulder-length hair.
The original post about the public affairs detachment in Iraq is here.
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