LEWISTON — After spending a year in Iraq with an Army Reserve medical unit treating soldiers, Col. David DeHaas, 52, is happy to be back in the United States seeing green.
“It’s good to see grass,” he said Thursday from a Wisconsin Army base where the unit is debriefing.
DeHaas is one of 45 soldiers in the 399th Combat Support Hospital unit in Auburn. The 399th is made up of doctors, nurses, medical technicians and support staff.
The 45 are to return to Maine on Monday. A welcome-back celebration is planned at the Portland Jetport.
Evelyn Pierce of Farmington hopes to be there, she said Thursday night. The 82-year-old grandmother of Staff Sgt. Charles Pierce, 29, of New Vineyard, said he phoned his parents, Stephen and Jennie Pierce of New Vineyard, when his overseas flight landed in Bangor.
“We can’t wait until he comes the final distance,” Evelyn said. “His father said, ‘I can come over and get you.’ He said, ‘I wish.’”
Sgt. Pierce graduated from Mt. Blue High School and joined the Army before serving in the reserves as a radiology technician, Evelyn said.
“’I don’t want a fuss made over me,’” she said he told his father on the phone.
“If we surprise him I don’t think that will break his heart,” his grandmother, who raised 10 children. “There are lots of cousins and aunts and uncles waiting to see him.”
“’I want you to bring my car down and let me drive my car home,’” Sgt. Pierce reportedly told his father.
“He can’t wait to drive his car again and go fishing. Those are the two loves of his life,” said Evelyn, whose husband Alfred, a World War II veteran, died this summer. She plans to share some of his war memorabilia with her grandson and perhaps hear about his experiences in Iraq.
“I hope he talks about it,” she said. Maybe it will be over dessert.
“I might make him a chocolate cream pie,” she said.
Meanwhile, Pierce and the other soldiers of the 339th are going through evaluations at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin before being released from active duty to reserve status. Some members worked in a combat hospital in Al Asad, west of Baghdad. Others worked in one in Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
DeHaas, of Bar Harbor, praised his unit, saying it “did an outstanding job with trauma.”
Much of the trauma came from “vehicles being hit or blown up with explosive devices,” he said. Bombs were hidden in roads or vehicles. Someone would “pack a car full of explosives and detonate them,” he said.
When his unit left Iraq on Sept. 22, he felt satisfied.
“One of the generals who spoke to us said our being there made it possible for his boys to get in their vehicles and go out on patrol every day,” DeHaas said. “They knew if something happened to them, because we were there they had the best chance possible of survival.”
Husband and wife Sgt. Tim Verreault and Spc. Jessica Verreault of Auburn, both LPNs in the 399th, agreed.
Working in the Army hospital “was a good experience,” Tim said. “We did some good work and saved some soldiers lives.”
Treating wounded soldiers was often a daily occurrence. “We might not have any for a couple of days, then we’d have five or 12,” he said.
Tim, 31, grew up in Auburn and worked in the emergency room. Jessica, 25, grew up in Michigan and worked in intensive care. Sometimes, the couple worked together on the same soldier, working to save that life. That kind of experience brought them even closer, he said.
Soon, she’ll return to Central Maine Medical Center where she’s a nurse. He’ll return to school. Shifting back to civilian life will be a change.
“I can’t wait to get back to our lives,” he said.
Because it has hosted so many welcome homes, the Maine Army National Guard is helping the Army Reserve organize Monday’s event.
“We want to help give their soldiers the honor and welcome home they deserve,” said Lt. Col. Michael J. Backus, director of public affairs with the Maine National Guard.
Arlene Greenlaw with the 399th in Auburn said organizers will try to make Monday’s celebration “short and sweet so they can get to their families.”
Jennifer Snowman of Pittsfield, a mother of three ages 14 months to five years, is among the 399th families. Her husband’s return is a big relief.
“I’m ecstatic,” she said. “It’s absolutely wonderful.”
Her husband, Benjamin Snowman, worked in the emergency room at the Al Asad hospital.
Because her children are so young, they don’t understand why their father has been gone, she said, but they do understand he’ll soon be home.
Every time their 3-year-old son sees a plane overhead, he asks if his father is on it, she said. Every day her children wake, they want to know if that’s the day he returns.
“The kids are talking about it,” Snowman said.
Staff Editor Mary Delamater contributed to this report.
bwashuk@sunjournal.com
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