Families welcome back long-serving guardsmen

Fifteen-month-old Eric Palmer Jr. and sister Taylor, 7, climbed all over their dad yesterday throughout the entire welcome-home ceremony for his D.C. Army National Guard unit.

A year has passed since Sgt. Eric Palmer shipped out with the 273rd Military Police Company to the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“It’s the best feeling in the world to see your kids and your wife,” he said yesterday as Eric Jr. wriggled about in his lap. “Especially since he wasn’t even walking when I left.”

Families around the country hope reunions like the one yesterday will continue to occur frequently because thousands of guardsmen and reservists have been serving long deployments since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The ceremony at the D.C. Armory yesterday marked the end of two consecutive deployments for the nearly 100 members of the 273rd.

Several speakers and a military band and color guard honored the families and troops, whose 20 months on active duty involved security detail around the District until late last summer, then the assignment in Guantanamo.

For some, the deployment was even longer.

Sgt. Horace Stewart was with a small contingent of the 273rd that spent two years in the Middle East before being called back to the District for the security detail after September 11.

When that ended, it was off to Guantanamo.

Now that he’s back, Sgt. Stewart, 45, plans to become a state trooper, perhaps in Maryland. However, he first would like to “relax and visit some family members.”

The 273rd has been posted since late last summer to Guantanamo, known worldwide as home to the massive, maximum-security prison complex built to hold suspected terrorists. More than 500 suspects are held at the prison, called “Camp Delta.”

Several soldiers nodded yes yesterday to acknowledge they had been posted “inside the wire” at Guantanamo, but would not discuss the potentially dangerous job of guarding prisoners inside the cell blocks that are surrounded by razor or barbed wire.

Their efforts were rewarded yesterday with such individualgifts as an American flag wrapped in a dark wood-and-glass case, military coins, an Olympic-sized D.C. National Guard medal and a pair of government-issued lapel pins.

“One for me and one for my wife,” said Sgt. John Jones, 46.

“That’s very nice,” said wife Diana, who sat proudly through the ceremony holding the couple’s 4-year-old son, Matthew.

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