A WARM HANDSHAKE ON A COLD NIGHT – Rolling Thunder® TN-Chapter 6 members Jackie Laird, Ronnie Lewis and Jim Phelps escorted the bus from Parker’s Crossroad that carried a handful of men and women with the 1171st Transportation Unit to the armory in Dresden Thursday evening. The unit arrived home after nearly a one-year deployment to Iraq. Local members of the Patriot Guard also participated in the escort.

When the members of the 1171st Transportation Unit stepped off of their bus Thursday evening, family and friends seemed to have forgotten how cold the temperatures were or how long they had spent waiting in the parking lot that evening for the National Guard unit’s arrival.
It had been almost one year to the day since the men and women of the 1171st Transportation Unit had departed from the armory in Dresden bound for the Middle East on Dec. 4, 2009.
Remarking at how much his one-year-old daughter had grown since he last saw her, Sgt. Robert Fine of Caruthersville, Mo. took his children into his arms Thursday and squeezed them with as much joy as one person could seemingly possess.
The unit wasn’t expected to arrive in Dresden until Sunday. Fine said he didn’t mind the cold, dark setting that had brought he and his family together after nearly one year, if it meant coming home two days prior to schedule.
It was a last-minute effort to escort the unit back from the Parker’s Crossroads leg of their trip Thursday night from Smyrna. A handful of Patriot Guard and Rolling Thunder® TN-Chapter 6 members bundled up on their motorcycles bound for the exit that would eventually bring the transportation unit home. The Weakley County Rescue Squad, Dresden Fire Department and Dresden Police Department also assisted in the safe return of the unit on the final leg of its trip home.
The 1171st were stateside at Camp Shelby, Miss. last weekend before heading to Smyrna for out-processing where they would be released to their friends and family, just three weeks before Christmas.
The company, which is composed of 175 soldiers from Dresden and Tiptonville spent nearly one year deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The 1171st departed from Dresden just two days before the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the state’s largest unit, deployed for Iraq.
The men and women of both units have since made a safe return home.

WCP 12.07.10