Budget limits Dagger Brigade homecoming

Budget limits Dagger Brigade homecoming
By Mark St.Clair, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, December 5, 2007

SCHWEINFURT, Germany — There will be no official welcome-home party for the Dagger Brigade.

Instead, January will be one long remembrance of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division mission in Iraq.

“The better part of the month of January will be spent to recognize the job the brigade did (in Iraq),” Lt. Col. Robert Whittle, commander of Task Force Guardian, Dagger’s rear detachment, said Tuesday.

~snip~

Also planned are memorial services honoring the unit’s fallen and wounded, with a brigadewide service on Jan. 23, and time for battalion-specific ceremonies the day prior.

“We’re doing the right thing for soldiers and families in terms of closure from a very long deployment,” said Lt. Col. Steve Miska, the brigade’s deputy commander.

Last January, a cash-strapped U.S. Army Europe canceled large-scale welcome-home celebrations, which often would include free food, rides and well-known entertainment acts.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50736

should be over there entertaining the troops for free, don't you? They are the first to say folks like us "don't support the troops."

Betcha if any entertainer decides to do a gig gratis for them, it will be someone like the Dixie Chicks.