Lance Cpl. Ryan Provasi is greeted by his girlfriend Amanda Kelley as the 3rd Battlion, 5th Marine Regiment return to Camp Pendleton from Afghanistan. (Photo by Bill Wechter - Staff photographer)
Wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan just two weeks into his first combat assignment, Lt. Cameron West has waited for months to see the men who helped save his life after the explosion tore off his right leg.
He got that chance Wednesday afternoon, when members of the 3rd Platoon of Kilo Company returned to Camp Pendleton from a nearly eight-month deployment. The company is part of a Camp Pendleton battalion that has suffered more casualties than any other in the 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan.
"It's great to see you," Lance Cpl. Tim Wagner told West, as he greeted his former platoon leader on a parade deck deep inside the Marine Corps base, where hundreds of friends and family members greeted about 350 returning troops. "It's great to see everybody ---- it was a rough deployment."
West strode through the crowd on his prosthetic leg in search of the men he trained with for a year before deploying to Afghanistan in late September of last year.
"I just want to see as many guys as I can. It's good stuff ... now it's time for them just to relax."
On Oct. 15, West was leading his Camp Pendleton platoon on a hunt for Taliban insurgents in the Helmand province's deadly Sangin district. That's where 25 members of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were killed and more than 150 wounded, including more than a dozen who lost one or more limbs.
As West ordered his platoon to a halt, his radio operator, Lance Cpl. James Boelk of Oceanside, stepped on a hidden bomb. The blast killed Boelk and injured West and three other Marines and the platoon's Navy medical corpsman.
Among the men there that day was Cpl. Darin Hess, who also greeted West on Wednesday.
"It was the worst reality check in the world that day," Hess said, recalling West as a "very aggressive, tough and true leader."
Hess arrived home last week. Wednesday's homecoming was the next-to-last for the battalion since its more than 900 members began arriving home last week.
"These guys are all my brothers and always will be," Hess said of why he made sure he was on hand to greet the Kilo and Weapons Company troops.
The same was true for Cpl. Justin McCloud, who like West is undergoing rehabilitation at Navy Medical Center West in San Diego. McCloud lost his legs and an arm in a roadside bomb explosion shortly after West was injured.
McCloud said he misses his fellow Marines, adding, "They're all my brothers, and it's a tight brotherhood."
West, 25, also lost a finger and has little vision in his right eye, the result of shrapnel from the bomb. A surgery scheduled in June is intended to clean up the fragments in advance of optical surgery that doctors say can restore full sight.
Among those he saw was 1st Lt. Tom Schueman of Chicago, who said returning to Camp Pendleton after the bloody deployment was "fantastic."
"We really missed him," he said of West. "The company missed him, but we knew he was back here acting as a leader for the wounded guys."
Schueman's mom, Grace, a Chicago police officer, was among the dozens of parents on hand to greet their sons.
A beat patrolwoman who sees it all in her work, she said her son's deployment was the most nerve-racking time of her life.
"There's nothing they can do to you prepare you for it," she said. "The almost daily reports of deaths when they first got there were terrible. Every time someone knocked on the door, electricity just shot through me.
"My heart goes out to all those families whose sons didn't come home."
Col. Willy Buhl, the former regimental commander, said getting the battalion's troops home and back with their families will allow him to rest a little easier at night.
"It's a combination of great pride and great relief," he said. "They've been through the most significant deployment of any battalion since (the Iraq war) 2004, and they've measured up in every respect."
The unit was credited with helping wrest the Sangin district from the control of the insurgent Taliban, who used the region for illicit drug trafficking and manufacturing roadside bombs, which reports said littered the area.
Marine Corps officials have taken the unusual step of ordering the battalion to stay together for another 90 days to decompress together. A cadre of mental health specialists has been assigned to watch over the troops.
Sandy Cook of Dallas, at the base to meet her son, Cpl. Clay Cook, said she wholeheartedly supports that decision.
"I'm so glad they're staying together," she said. "I think they need each other after what they've been through. The continuity that's going to provide is important for them to heal."
West's mom, Sheryl, a registered nurse, also was at the base and said her son is still processing his difficult memories.
"It's hard, and it's going to be hard for a lot of these guys for some time," she said.
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