Home from Iraq

By Lee Reeder

SSgt. Ron Milton

On March 26, six days after the beginning of the war in Iraq, the major news organizations were occupied with the main push of coalition troops getting bogged down in Nasiriyah and Basra in southern Iraq as the attack force marched northward toward Baghdad.

On that day, good news was reported from the north. Just before midnight on the 26th, 950 paratroopers from the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade flew in low and parachuted into northern Iraq near Bashur, becoming the vanguard for a new northern front in dramatic fashion. Army SSgt. Ron Milton of Crestline was one of those Rangers. One of their missions was to help ensure no problems flared up between the Kurds and the Turks in the north. They are now involved in conducting searches.

Milton, son of Susan and Bob Milton, graduated from Rim High in June 1996, and joined the Army a month later. Milton has spent seven months in Iraq and has approximately five months left to serve there when he returns to Iraq on Saturday. Sometime between February and April, Milton's unit is scheduled to redeploy back to its home at Aviano Air Base in Italy.

Milton has earned the Army Commendation medal with "V" device (for valor) and the Purple Heart. On Aug. 8 he was hit by fragments from a rocket-propelled grenade. Shrapnel from the weapon hit him in the leg, back of the head and neck. "It's still pretty dangerous over there," he said.

He was one of the soldiers sent home on leave for two weeks recently in a widely publicized move by the military. It was a complete surprise. "I was laying there at about 11 o'clock at night, and they said: 'Pack your stuff. Tomorrow you're going to roll out with convoy back to base and catch a ride home.' I was pretty surprised." The Army paid for his transportation to Baltimore, and he paid for the rest.

"It was a big culture shock for the first few days," Milton said. "It's different to adjust after seven months in the desert - everything from girls to food to a bed. It's great."

Milton had another pleasant surprise while in Iraq. For the last three years of high school his best friend at Rim was fellow Crestline resident Rob Gobel, who also graduated in 1996. The two played football together. "We hadn't seen each other in six years," Milton said. "He flies helicopters now and we ran into each other in Iraq." Gobel is a Chief Warrant Officer 2. Gobel's crew had landed in Kirkuk for a few hours and they coincidentally met each other. He said the two got to eat dinner and visit together for a few hours.

Milton's father, Bob remembers the day he got the news of the 173rd landing in Iraq: "It was a remarkable day. A scary one for us, though."