Elkin Tribune
BY LONNIE ADAMSON ASSOCIATE EDITOR
It was a much more relaxed and confident-appearing Corey Carson who greeted family and friends Sunday during a ceremony for returning National Guard soldiers.
Carson and his wife, Cindy, of Elkin, had been in the same lobby at Wilkes Community College’s Walker Center 14 months ago, saying their goodbyes before both being deployed to Iraq with the 505th Engineer Battalion. A contingent of it is based at the Elkin Armory.
Now the Carsons are both back in North Carolina and will soon take up with the lives they left. They and other members of the 505th returned to the United States late last month and have been preparing to return home, most of them from a center at Fort Bragg. He is back in Elkin. She is in sergeant’s school for another two weeks at Eastover. After that they will take a vacation, he said. “I’m going to go deer hunting. That’s at the top of my list. She’ll probably go with me. I’ve gotten her into that.”
Then he will resume work at Roadway Express as a dock worker in Kernersville. She will go back to school and finish a bachelor’s degree.
A year ago, Carson could barely be coaxed into describing what it was like to leave his home and serve his country alongside his wife.
“There is no husband and wife in the military, just soldiers,” he said back then. Now he is able to say, “It was very stressful.” Sometimes they were near one another and knew what the other was doing; then sometimes they were far apart. “It was very stressful, but we just picked up and did our jobs,” he said.
That job, performed by the 505th, drew high praise from the dignitaries at Sunday’s ceremony for the returning soldiers.
Brig. Gen. Thomas Lawing cited seven major accomplishments of the engineering group.
“You completed 380 engineering missions, filled 800 IED crater holes, built 100,000 square feet of new construction, completed 20,000 square feet of reconstruction, experienced 130 enemy attacks, including 62 IED engagements.”
He also said the 505th developed new tactics and procedures for filling crater holes. Those are now used throughout the Army in Iraq.
They did all of that and all of them came home. “That is the most important accomplishment,” he said.
Lt. Col. Matthew Russo, who commanded the 505th in Iraq, noted that almost half of the soldiers present in auditorium had come under enemy attack.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-Banner Elk, who represents the Fifth Congressional District, thanked them for the work they did.
“I am sorry not every chair in here is filled,” she said. The auditorium, which holds 600 was less than half full.
“People are at church and going about their day-to-day tasks. They are doing that because you have made it possible for them to do that. Because of what you have done, the rest of us are able to do our day-to day tasks without it (the war) being ever-present on our minds.”
While traveling around the Fifth District recently Foxx said she was struck by the lifestyles the area’s people live. Foxx is seeking reelection in the November election. She visited Iraq recently and returned with an upbeat report on the situation there.
“We are a simple people without an imperialist attitude. We just want to be left alone and allowed to live free,” she said.
