When Army Spc. Adrian Dupree of Baltimore learned two days ago that he would be heading home on the first daily rest and recuperation flight for soldiers stationed in Iraq, he decided to tell his fiancee to meet him at BWI airport yesterday, but he wanted to surprise his family. That he did.
His mother, Sheron Whittington, was walking through another part of the airport, reporting to her Frontier Airlines customer relations job, when she saw her son on television doing a live interview.
"I just happened to look up, and I almost fainted," Whittington said, explaining that she's not angry with her son one bit. "I'm so pleased and really, really proud. For him to surprise me like that - I'll never forget this day."
Dupree, 24, of Yale Heights in Southwest Baltimore, was among the 192 soldiers who arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Airport's international terminal from Kuwait, via Frankfurt, Germany, at 6 a.m.
Taking advantage of the Pentagon-provided 15-day vacation from war, Dupree, a 1997 Carver High grad, and his fiancee, Mieasha Pompey, are busily planning their wedding for Friday.
Army Lt. Col. Bob Hagen, a public affairs officer who spoke to the camouflage-uniformed soldiers before they left the plane to go through customs, said 270 left Kuwait, and 78 got off to spend their vacations in Germany. The rest flew straight to Baltimore, where they boarded connecting flights to disperse across the country to visit family and friends.
One planeload of troops a day will arrive at BWI for now, and the number could increase to up to three planes per day. Flights might go directly to Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta and St. Louis. The government pays for the charter to the United States, but the troops pay for the rest of their trips, which were arranged through a military travel agency in Kuwait, Hagen said. After 10 months to a year, all soldiers, sailors and Marines will have had a chance to go home, Hagen said.
Walt Wood, a retired Army first sergeant who helped plan the program, said it is similar to R&R programs the Pentagon operated for troops in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, and during the gulf war of 1991. But it is a new program for this conflict, he said.
"It's good for the Army, the families and the soldiers," Wood said.
The troops on leave were chosen by their commanders based on the length of service in Iraq, operational needs of each unit and personal factors, such as new fathers who hadn't seen their children. Participants ran the gamut from regular enlisted troops to National Guard and reservists, Wood said.
A loud round of cheering and applause greeted the surprised, but pleased, soldiers as they hauled heavy duffel bags off the plane in front of a large bank of television cameras and reporters to seek travel connections to places as diverse as San Francisco, Burlington, Vt., and Creola, Ala.
"One of the biggest things is to not carry a weapon," Chief Warrant Officer Eric Bull, 28, a helicopter pilot headed home to Fort Polk, La., said as he nervously patted his chest where his semiautomatic pistol normally rested. "I think it's going to take a while to change gears."
John Perkins Jr., a 30-year-old paratrooper from Macon, Ga., had a large American flag draped over his shoulders, signed by other members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, he said, to help cheer a buddy who lost both legs below the knees in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in June in Kirkuk, northern Iraq. Perkins wants to see his two children, Hannah, 5, and Gabby, 3, and his parents, he said.
"We jumped into Iraq," Perkins said, explaining that his friend, Aaron Blakely, lost his legs later, during a night attack as their platoon slept inside a former Iraqi police station.
Perkins said he planned to stop at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington to visit Blakely before returning to Georgia.
The dangers in Iraq loom daily. Rockets killed one and wounded two other 173rd paratroopers while they were on patrol in a vehicle in Kirkuk late Thursday, just hours after Perkins left the area.
Lindsay Clark, 21, an Army intelligence specialist from Columbus, Ohio, had the smaller comforts of life on her mind - the ones that loom large when they're absent, she said.
"It's the little things, like flushing toilets and showers every day when you know you won't be dirty again five minutes later," she said.
She had very little time to prepare to come home. "I called my mom last night, and she hyperventilated," Clark said.
Clark was hopeful and upbeat about her experience in the service. "You grow so much. You age past what your friends are doing, even though they're going to college," she said.
Her first priority when she gets home, Clark said, "is to have a cup of coffee with my mom."
