Hugs
Friends and family line up for hugs. Photo by Kootenai Valley Record.
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Fireworks
Fireworks and falling snow greet returning National Guard soldiers. Photo by Kootenai Valley Record.
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Local Guard unit arrives back home
by Brent Shrum, Kootenai Valley Record
January 7, 2010
Amid New Year’s fireworks and falling snow, local members of the Montana Army National Guard’s 639th Quartermaster Company arrived home in Libby a few minutes after midnight on Jan. 1.
The soldiers’ bus was escorted through town to the National Guard armory by local law enforcement personnel and trucks from the Libby Volunteer Fire Department, emergency lights flashing. At the armory, the returning soldiers were met by a crowd of friends and family happy to see them home after a year in Iraq. Fireworks were set off behind the armory as the bus unloaded.
The company is headquartered in Havre and has units in Libby and Kalispell. The approximately 130 members of the unit were deployed last January. The company served 11 months in Iraq, operating a giant fuel farm on a base in Baghdad.
The company was previously deployed to Iraq from December 2003 to March 2005.
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Editor’s Note: See the January 5, 2010 edition of the Kootenai Valley Record for the printed version of this story. The Kootenai Valley Record publishes once a week, on Tuesdays, in Libby, Montana. They are a locally owned community newspaper, located at 403 Mineral Avenue in Libby. For in-county and out-of-county subscription information, call 406-293-2424, or e-mail kvrecord@gmail.com.
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