Story and photo by Amy Newcomb
GUIDON staff
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After a yearlong deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, more than 100 Soldiers from 509th Engineer Company returned from Afghanistan to post June 13.

The men and women who spent a year clearing roadside bombs were met at Gerlach Field by the cheering crowd of fellow Soldiers, Family members and friends.

Lt. Col. Chris McGowan, 5th Engineer Battalion commander, told those gathered that the 509th Eng. Co. had one of the most dangerous jobs in the Army, but all had returned home and their deployment mission was a success.

“The Soldiers who stand before you just completed 12 months of accomplishing what is without question the most dangerous and probably the most critical mission our Soldiers are doing in Afghanistan,” McGowan said. “They were the only route clearance company in that entire area (Regional Command-West) — essentially responsible for keeping all the routes safe in an area about the size of Missouri and over the last 12 months they have cleared approximately 40,000 kilometers of roads.”

“The way we judge route clearance companies is by how many improvised explosive devices they find versus the ones that find them, and they’ve been about 20 percent higher in their success rate than most other route clearance companies in theater,” he added.

McGowan acknowledged the most difficult part of a deployment for Soldiers was being separated from their Families and friends.

“They love what they do and all of our Soldiers volunteer. I think 90 percent of them would say they are gladly there doing the job they are doing in a great unit; however, no matter how much they enjoy their job and feel like they are contributing, they all want to be back home with their loved ones,” McGowan said.

Beth Smith, wife of Spc. Clark Smith, 509th Eng. Co., and their two children — Bailey, 8, and Colton, 1,— waited anxiously for the husband and father who had been gone for a year to depart from the buses and return to their Family after his second deployment to Afghanistan.

  “I am looking forward to him reuniting with the kids more than anything,” Smith said. “(This deployment) was a little bit easier because I have been through it once before, but it was hard too, because I had a baby three months before he left.”

When asked what she missed the most about her husband, Smith replied “Him in general, just being there, being able to talk to him anytime I wanted.”