By Michael Moss
New York Times
04 September 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq , Sept. 3 - Capt. Terrence P. Ryan has made a career out of helping Americans dig out from storms up and down the Gulf Coast. But now, with his own house underwater, he is stuck at Camp Victory in Iraq waiting for a flight home. Skip to next paragraph Storm and Crisis Photographs and video from a devastated region. New Orleans Update Evacuation and cleanup efforts.
The region is battered, but there is little early effect on the economy across the nation. Faced with a disaster of biblical proportions, everything fell apart in New Orleans.
Captain Ryan and 4,200 other members of the National Guard from Louisiana have finished their yearlong tour of duty. Their replacements, from other states, began arriving last month. But the Louisiana guardsmen are not expecting to fly home for at least another week, maybe two, and the journey itself could take 4 to 10 days. "It's our turn to help our own, and we're not there," said Captain Ryan, 37.
For some, the wait is excruciating. A handful of guardsmen have not been able to locate their families, and their fellow guardsmen in Louisiana have organized house-to-house searches to track them down. Some critics have suggested that the military's use of National Guard troops in Iraq has slowed the relief effort on the Gulf Coast. Military officials in Iraq said they would try to speed the return of the Louisiana guardsmen. About 4,100 guardsmen from Mississippi are not scheduled to return until late fall.
Even those who know that their families are safe are crowding around televisions in camp, watching the drama unfold on CNN and Fox News, the two networks used by the military's broadcast service. "Once we heard that the storm came across the gulf, the TV's have been on 24 hours," Captain Ryan said in a telephone interview. Sgt. First Class Errol Williams, 33, a full-time guardsman who lives in Marrero, a 10-minute drive from downtown New Orleans, said he felt fortunate that his family had the means to escape the storm. Three days earlier, his wife and two children packed up and drove to the home of his wife's aunt in North Carolina .
"Everybody doesn't have automobiles and even money to stay in a hotel," he said. Sergeant Williams said he was communicating with his family on the Internet but did not know how their house had fared. "I have different speculations, but I just don't know," he said. Captain Ryan discovered the fate of his home - also 10 minutes from downtown New Orleans - when he saw an aerial photograph of his block on an Internet site. The water, he said, is "over the roof." His son and his sister fled before the storm struck, moving in with friends in northern Louisiana. "I got an e-mail today from my sister, saying they are safe, this is where we are living, this is what we are doing.
So I e-mailed her back with 150 questions," Captain Ryan said. The guardsmen said that they have been relieved to see other guardsmen stream into Louisiana and the other stricken states, and that they do not begrudge their work in Iraq. "Actually our primary mission is federal, here in Iraq, and our secondary is at home," Sergeant Williams said. Captain Ryan, for one, has not been fighting the insurgents. His job is civil service, delivering clothing, books and toys to children whose lives are disrupted by the fighting. The items, he noted, which have totaled thousands of pounds in the past few months, were donated by a charity based in the New Orleans area.
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Citation: Michael Moss, "Anxiety in Iraq for Guardsmen From Gulf Area," New York Times, 4 September 2005.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04soldiers.html?ei=5070&en=c45ce42a46d1e0ff&ex=1126411200&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print
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