Article ran : 05/27/2003
Honey, we're home
By ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Mark Beadles and his wife Tami stood at Onslow Beach Monday morning and watched as Marine Corps landing craft chugged toward the shore from a massive ship. It had been a long time since the couple, from Phoenix, had seen their son Terry, a corporal and javelin antitank gunner with Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment.
For the last nine months, Terry Beadles and the rest of the 2,300 Marines and sailors with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit have been deployed, mainly in support of the war on terrorism. Only a few weeks ago, they were in combat with Iraqi troops.
"I'll be glad when he steps back on U.S. soil and when he comes home on leave in June," said Mark Beadles, a former Marine himself who is now a police officer.
"There aren't words to describe how proud we are," he said evenly, a look of pride on his face as he gazed into the distance. "Combat changes a person, and I'm waiting to see him. If he gets off the ship and starts talking like Hank Hill (from the TV show "King of the Hill") we'll know he's OK."
Tami said she is also worried about how the war has changed her son.
"I can only imagine what he's seen and done," she said. "I want him to be able to put it away. Only recently he's been able to sleep again."
The MEU arrived in short bursts Monday morning at Onslow Beach to tearful and joyous reunions with family members at their unit headquarters. The troops were deposited into the landing crafts from the USS Austin, USS Tortuga and USS Nassau, their homes since August. The ships then journeyed to the North Carolina State Port in Morehead City to unload equipment and more troops.
Security was tight at the port Monday and media access was not allowed. The lockdown will likely continue today when the Nassau is scheduled to send more equipment ashore near Radio Island, said MEU commander Col. Richard Mills.
The Beadles family, like many others, waited on the shore. Their oldest son Matthew served in the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999 and youngest son Nicholas, 18, plans to join this summer.
"My biggest concern was that (Terry) wasn't going to come home, but I kept trying to be positive in the telephone calls," Tami Beadles said, fighting back tears.
She belongs to a Marine Mom's Internet group that primarily caters to those parents whose sons and daughters are in basic training. She always felt like an old hand telling others how it is, but the war was a new experience for all of them.
"Nobody had experienced that," she said.
Her son, like his MEU counterparts, gained some new experiences on this deployment.
Since the MEU left in August on what was supposed to be a routine six-month deployment, the Marines and sailors spent a month in the snowy mountains on a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. They then went ashore in the Djibouti desert and the Kenyan jungle on antiterrorist missions for about 2 1/2 months.
In March, they went into Iraq as a supporting force for Task Force Tarawa, where they were in charge of security along Route 7 near An Nasiriyah and Al Kut, Mills said.
"There were two Iraqi divisions that really didn't want to fight," Mills said. "There was some sniper fire and some limited engagement with paramilitary forces."
But, Mills said, much of the devastation in Iraq was not related to the war, but was the result of a regime that was repressive to its people.
"I was shocked that a country with that much money had people living so poorly in mud huts without roads and schools," he said.
But all things considered, he felt the deployment was a success.
"It was event filled and exciting," Mills said. "It's great to bring everybody in the MEU home."
The Beadles family felt the same way. As they saw son Terry they waved him over, according to the Associated Press. He greeted his parents with a smile and hugs. He told them he loved them before returning to his unit.
He hadn't changed a bit, his dad told the Associated Press.
"I had two worries - one that he wouldn't come home and the other one is that he would change. He didn't. He's still the little goofy kid I sent off to the Marine Corps. Thank God," Mark Beadles said.
Contact Eric Steinkopff at
esteinkopff@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 236.
Sempers,
Roger