PHOTO COURTESY OF 1ST NCR PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE
Capt. William Rudich, commander of the 30th Naval Construction Regiment, got a warm welcome home yesterday from his wife, Marcie. Rudich and eight other Pearl Harbor Seabees returned from Iraq after serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Pearl Harbor-based
Seabees return to
a warm welcomeMembers of the 30th Naval Construction
Regiment helped build bridges and
restore electricity to areas in Iraq
The scariest moment for Pearl Harbor-based Navy Seabee Takisha Toby came early in the Iraq war when a Scud missile exploded above her in Kuwait.
The air raid sirens had sounded, and a Patriot missile intercepted the Scud in midair.
"We had our gas masks on and were hunkered down in the bunker," she said.
To keep their spirits up in the bunker, Toby said, her commander led them in singing "The Song of the Seabees."
Toby was among nine Pearl Harbor Seabees who returned from Iraq yesterday and were greeted with American flags, balloons, hugs and leis at Honolulu Airport.
Navy Seabees -- a nickname for construction battalion, or CB -- are in charge of building bridges and other infrastructure for the military. The members of the 30th Naval Construction Regiment traveled all the way to Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division, building bridges and restoring electricity to civilian areas.
"It was scary at times and good at times," said Cmdr. Mark Franco, who returned home after being away since November. He said he will always remember the smiling faces of Iraqi children.
"I'm sure we did a good thing," Franco said. He said the Iraqi civilians were grateful to the U.S. military.
The unit's commander, Capt. William Rudich, remembered a visit to one of Saddam Hussein's palaces. He said he was struck by the contrast between the opulence of the palace and the poverty that most civilians endured.
But Rudich's most vivid memory of Iraq is of what the Marines called "MOASS" -- the mother of all sandstorms.
"If you hadn't seen this with your own eyes, you wouldn't believe it," he said about the huge sandstorm, which was followed by rain, thunder and lightning.
Through it all, Rudich said, the main concern of the men and women under his command "was that we hadn't built anything yet."
"If you had told them to go to work in the middle of that storm, they would have done it," he said.
For now, Rudich said he is glad to be back and looks forward to spending time with his wife and five children. His plans are to do "whatever my wife tells me to do."
Toby said the deployment to Iraq made her appreciate the United States more. "We definitely have it better than a lot of people," she said.
As Toby waited in the baggage area dressed in her desert fatigues, a stranger came up to her and asked to give her a hug to say thank you.
Toby said it is not the first time strangers have approached her like that on her trip back to Hawaii.
Maybe it's because it is Memorial Day weekend, she speculated. "They're just extremely proud."
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