Medical soldiers serving in Iraq get warm homecoming

Medical soldiers serving in Iraq get warm homecoming

By Christopher J. Baxter
Globe Correspondent / June 20, 2008

BEDFORD - They bandaged gunshot wounds and performed emergency surgery on blast victims. So it's no surprise the contingent of medical soldiers returning from Iraq yesterday yearned for nothing more than family time and some New England staples.

"All I want is a Dunkin' Donuts coffee," Captain Gayle Nowak, a nurse from Worcester, said, embracing her 8-year-old daughter, Maria. "We're going to go home this afternoon and go swimming."

Teary-eyed family members cheered and waved small American flags as the 73 Army reservists stepped off a chartered plane at Hanscom Air Force Base yesterday afternoon. The 405th Combat Support Hospital, based in West Hartford, Conn., deployed a year ago to join the 325th Combat Support Hospital out of Independence, Mo. The soldiers treated patients at medical centers in Tikrit and Al Asad.
click post title for more