"Our guys were told the quickest way home was through Baghdad," Jennifer said. "They got to Baghdad, and they sent them to Fallouja. Now we don't know what's next."
In Iraq, a few concerned senior noncommissioned officers were moved to issue a statement, noting the 3rd Infantry Division had spearheaded the assault on Baghdad, and detailing what the unexpectedly long deployment was doing to their families and their careers. "The war fighters in the major campaign have been told ... they would be going back to their loved ones and newly born children twice, while that time came and went," the NCOs said.
"There are soldiers who stand guard in Iraq and do the right thing, have a good attitude no matter what happens, even though they have seen their 3-year-old sons and daughters for as little as six months of their lifetimes," their statement said. "Many have not seen their new children ... even though they received bad information and reality crushed them and their families more than once."
The document said the NCOs and their soldiers would continue to perform their duties with professionalism.
Back at Ft. Stewart, some angry spouses took their complaints over the Army's actions to the media. Others kept their feelings mostly to themselves.
Jennifer admits to being "maybe just a hair angry," and the last 10 months have taught her to try not to think about when Scott will walk though the door of the home she has prepared for him. "I'd rather not be disappointed any more, so what's the bother?" she says.
Though she sometimes feels sad -- she wept this month when she was alone on her second wedding anniversary -- she has called upon parents, in-laws, friends like fellow Army wife and neighbor Whitney Harkins and her own considerable stock of independence, flexibility, good cheer and gumption to make the best of things.
"If we can get through this," she says of herself and Scott, "we can get through anything."
After Scott shipped out, Jennifer went home with her baby to live for seven months with her parents in Hanoverton, Ohio, south of Youngstown. In May, she returned to Hinesville when she received the first false notice of Echo Troop's return.
She rented a 70-foot mobile home for $450 a month, and has been decorating it with curtains she stitched, wooden birdhouses she painted and a sound system she assembled. "Anything," Jennifer said, "to keep busy."
