Warriors in Peace Operations - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

Also available was a 4-day pass program to Budapest,
Hungary, for soldiers and, if possible, their spouses. The
spouse would have to fly from Frankfurt to Budapest and
link up with their husbands. Diane and I opted for this
program and met at the Budapest Hilton for a wonderful
3-day break. In short, the R&R leave program was a huge
success and had no noticeable negative impact on the
continuation of highly competent operations in theater.
Back to the redeployment. The battalion redeployed one
battery at a time in the same order the units arrived in
Bosnia. C Battery led the way back to Baumholder, and the
force on the ground in Bosnia gradually decreased in size
and structure.
It was important to my wife and me for the homecoming
phase of the redeployment to go like a charm, thus providing
a lifelong memorable event. We have, to this day, warm
memories of our DESERT STORM redeployment and the
class act put on in that regard back at Fort Stewart,
Georgia.
In order to redeploy out of Bosnia, each company-size
unit had to turn in all excess, completely clean all vehicles
and equipment, qualify in gunnery skills (we had already
accomplished this at Glamoc), and pass a tough 10/20
maintenance inspection. We were well prepared for all this
and had no problems. In fact, A and C Battery were two of
only a handful of units in the division to meet all
redeployment standards at 100 percent.
We planned far in advance for the redeployment.
Previously, the battalion had entered the Division/Corps/
USAREUR Excellence in Maintenance Competition and
won at all levels. This was accomplished while deployed in
Bosnia. We had initially entered this competition with the
intent of winning the division title and thus receiving
Division MAIT assistance to fix our equipment for the
redeployment. In this way we could prepare ourselves well
for the maintenance recovery phase of the redeployment.
My executive officer had the vision to prepare all excess
153