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Homecoming on the home front
By CURTIS KRUEGER
© St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- Shawna Ward has spent the past month away from her husband and 20-month-old daughter, on duty with a U.S. Coast Guard unit that patrolled the waters of Boston Harbor looking for terrorists. When she returned home to Florida on Tuesday, she got to see what her husband had been teaching their child. "Touchdown!" said Rick Ward. Kalie's chubby little arms shot into the air. "What's (race car driver) Jeff Gordon do?" he asked. 'Go, go go!' answered Kalie.They were back from Boston, where they had gone to keep watch over cruise ships and other vessels following the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. Several cruise ships had moved there from New York just after the attacks But they are still on active duty, as the Coast Guard works to strengthen security at ports and along the nation's shorelines. Family members cheered as the men and women, clad in camouflage fatigues, stepped off the airport shuttle into the terminal, the closest they could get because of new security measures at the airport. Some brought red, white and blue balloons and held up handmade "Welcome Home" placards. The president has warned that the U.S. military response will be a long one, so it might have seemed strange to welcome military personnel home barely a month after the attack. Their return served as a reminder that this is a different kind of war for the United States, one in which thousands of soldiers are protecting "the home front" from more terrorist attacks as others wage war overseas. Kellie Monteleone of Clermont had a big hug for her husband, Charles. Before he arrived, she recalled how relieved she had been when he came home this summer after a four-month stint with the Coast Guard in Bahrain. Back then, she assumed Charles would stay on reserve status for a long time, thinking "they can't call you up unless we have a war." Then came Sept. 11, and she told herself, Well, I guess we're going to have a war. "It feels good to be home," said Pat Wiles, who is a Polk County paramedic in civilian life. He said people in Boston had been very happy about their presence, although he added that the unit suffered from "some pretty cold weather for us Floridians. The Bostonians were kind of laughing at us." "Give me the hot weather," said Sean VanAtter, 34, of Wesley Chapel after greeting his wife, Tanya. While the reservists came back to Florida, others were preparing to leave. In St. Petersburg, Col. Andrew Verrett of the National Guard is being mobilized with the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command and will head first for Fort Bliss, Texas, and then, he assumes, overseas. "My wife and I are very close, and it's not easy leaving," said Verrett. Verrett decided to show his feelings for his wife by writing a poem, and not just any poem. His work, The Roses of Haye, is a book-length rhyming novel available on Amazon.com, the Internet bookseller. He's not expecting to write anything so ambitious when he is shipped overseas with his unit, which plans missile defense and anti-aircraft positions. "Probably just letters," he said. Also Tuesday, National Guard Maj. Cheryl Spence said additional soldiers had arrived at Tampa International Airport to help supplement the work others are doing. She would not say how many new soldiers had come. - Curtis Krueger can be reached at krueger@sptimes.com or by calling (727) 893-8232.
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