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September 23, 2009

NEW LOCAL: Final Stryker troops return home; parade and ceremony Friday

By Keith Gushard

CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS — “Remember me?” Sandra Christenson said just before she rushed into the arms of her husband, Travis, who had just stepped off the bus.

Spec. Travis Christenson, 23, of Meadville, was among six soldiers who returned home late Tuesday night to the Pennsylvania National Guard’s Cambridge Springs readiness center to a crowd of about 45 well-wishers and family members.

Christenson was among the final batch of troops of the Pennsylvania National Guard 56th Stryker Brigade’s 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry to return.

The last contingent of soldiers — less

than 40 — left Fort Dix, N.J., by bus around mid-day Tuesday and made stops in Bradford and Erie before returning to Cambridge Springs at just after 10 p.m. After its Cambridge stop, the bus was headed to its final destination of Oil City to drop off the last few Guard members from Tuesday’s long ride home.

“Where’s my little man? Where’s my little boy?” Christenson said to Skyler, the five-month-old son he had never seen in person before. “I know you know my voice.”

Travis and Sandra were married last August just weeks before the battalion was called to active duty.

“I’m ecstatic to meet my son,” Travis said, grinning from ear to ear.

Christenson said he’s planning on making the military his career and is expecting to make a deployment to Kosovo sometime next year.

He said he also would like to return to Iraq someday to renew friendships he had made with Iraqis. He said he had made friends with several of the unit’s interpreters.

“They want to help — to make a difference in their country and make it better than it was (under former leader Saddam Hussein),” Christenson said.

Christenson was in the last unit of the brigade to return. He and his fellow soldiers were those charged with completing the work as the battalion shifts from location to location, said Sgt. Davina Knight, personnel staffer at the battalion’s base in Cambridge Springs.

Tuesday night’s return was the fourth and final batch of troops to return since their overseas deployment back in January.

After pre-deployment training at Pennsylvania’s Fort Indiantown Gap, and Camp Shelby, Miss., last year, the 56th Stryker Brigade was deployed in January to Kuwait then on to Iraq. It returned to Fort Dix, N.J., Sept. 7.

Companies of the 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry, returned to Cambridge Springs from Fort Dix on Sept. 12, 13 and 14 to heroes’ welcomes.

A public welcome-home ceremony for the 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry is being planned in Cambridge Springs Friday with a parade at 9 a.m. and a public ceremony at Cambridge Springs High School at 11 a.m.



Keith Gushard can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at kgushard@meadvilletribune.com.

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