The Green Mountain Boys are marching home again.
Members of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat team will be returning from Afghanistan over the next few weeks. The 3,400 soldiers in the brigade - including nearly 1,400 Vermont Army National Guard members - have been lauded by civilian and military leaders alike as the best-trained, hardest who were-working unit in Afghanistan.
This praise is not surprising. In every conflict in our nation's history - from the capture of Fort Ticonderoga to combat in the “Sunni Triangle” in Iraq - Vermonters have shown their skill and their valor when called to fight, and the 86th has upheld that tradition in Afghanistan.
Whether it was training Afghan security forces, protecting the Bagram Air Base, or engaging in combat against insurgents, the Vermont guardsmen lived up to the words of Gen. John Sedgwick at the battle of Gettysburg that the 86th adopted as the unit motto: “Put the Vermonters ahead.”
Three of the 86th's soldiers - Specialist Ryan Grady, 25, of West Burke; Sgt. Tristan Southworth, 21, of Walden; and Sgt. Steven J. Deluzio, 25, of South Glastonbury, Conn. - were killed in action.
Others have been wounded, some horrifically. The exact number has not been revealed by Guard officials, but it reportedly could be as high as 125.
But after the homecoming celebrations are over and the yellow ribbons are taken down, the difficult task of readjusting to civilian life will begin for the returning Guard members.
The personnel coming back from Afghanistan are benefiting from the lessons learned after the Vermont Guard's last big deployment to Iraq in 2005-06.
It's understood that being in a combat zone is stressful, but coming home and not having a job is stressful too.
By federal law, Guardsmen and reservists are guaranteed that they'll keep the jobs they left behind when they are called to active duty, However, it's estimated that, on average, 1 in 3 members of Guard combat brigades will be unemployed when they return from their deployments.
The Vermont Guard has scheduled job fairs for the coming months and has developed a standardized application for all the state's colleges and universities for those who want to continue their education. State agencies have been contacted to make sure every returning solider has access to help for those who need it. Financial advisers, mental health counselors, job placement workers, and benefits experts are being made available for soldiers and their families.
Providing this intensive level of service is important. Unlike full-time soldiers, Guard members and reservists leave their families and civilian jobs behind for overseas deployments, and then go home to resume their lives without the support systems that active-duty soldiers have.
Working in the returning Guardmen's favor is the fact that veterans are treated with more societal respect today than, say, soldiers returning home during the Vietnam era.
No matter how you feel about the war in Afghanistan, we all owe our returning soldiers compassion and understanding. So, if you know of any Vermonters returning from Afghanistan, give them a hearty welcome home and thank them for their service.
But perhaps the best way to honor their service is to simply be aware that they have just gone through an unimaginably intense experience that few of us will ever know. Offer a hand if they need it, but give them space if they ask for it.
It's the least we can do.