After Four Months, A Shore Soldier Comes Home

POINT PLEASANT (Sunday, November 13, 2005) - Mary Romanski answered the telephone in her Marshall Drive home in Point Pleasant Saturday and was greeted by three of the sweetest words she had ever heard: "Honey, I'm home!"

On the other end of the telephone, with his boots planted firmly on American soil, Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Richard R. Romanski was back home after four months in Iraq and looking for a ride.

Mary Romanski and the youngest of her two sons — Mark, 13 — jumped in their new truck and headed for Fort Dix.

"He told me to meet him at the gate, and when I did, I didn't see anyone," Mary Romanski said. "I was driving around the base, and it was my son who actually saw him."

"There's Dad," Robert said, pointing to a group of soldiers walking along the roadside.

With that, Mary Romanski slapped the truck into park, and the homecoming began right there in the middle of the street.

"He was a little thinner, but when I hugged him he felt strong and looked awesome," she said of her husband of 16 years.

Richard Romanski, who is a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service in Brick, was deployed with the National Guard Aviation Brigade, Rainbow Division.

"We flew in over Lacey, and you could see the leaves had changed color," he said. "You miss little things like that when you are surrounded by nothing but desert.

"My son looks older, and my wife is beautiful. . . . She always was."

Richard Romanski worked as a motorpool officer in a forward operating base near Tikrit — the hometown of Saddam Hussein.

"I saw his palace. . . . It was pretty impressive," he said. "But I was lucky. I lived and worked in a concrete hangar with walls two feet thick.

"My heart goes out to the specialists and privates who drive convoys. They are the individuals who face great danger from mines and roadside bombs."

Richard Romanski arrived in Kuwait on July 29. His orders were for a two-year deployment.

"I came back with guys who have been over there for 13 and 15 months," he said. "It was my first tour in a war zone, but we were in the rear supporting the guys who did the missions.

"I lucked out being there only four months," he said.

Earlier this week, Richard Romanski sent his wife an e-mail telling her he hoped to be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then he sent another e-mail saying he would be home Saturday. But there was no further contact until he arrived at Fort Dix.

"In the military, you need to be flexible," Richard Romanski said. "Once you start moving, you lose contact with telephones and computers because you are either on trucks, buses or airplanes."

The commercial aircraft that brought him home madea stop in Ireland on Saturday morning. "That's when I started to feel pretty good," Richard Romanski said.

He wasted little time getting back into the Jersey Shore frame of mind. His first stops were Jersey Mike's Subs and Burro Burrito in Point Pleasant.

"He said he missed the simple American food," Mary Romanski said. "I was going to make baked chicken, but he asked for spaghetti. Whatever he wants."

Yet even safe at home, Richard Romanski remembered the soldiers he left behind.

"People forget these people went over there for the good of the country," he said. "Six months after they come home people forget, and these guys are still going to rehab for their wounds.

"The soldiers coming home need more support from Veterans Affairs and the country," he said.

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