Vicksburg Police officer Leonce Young holds a picture of himself in his Seabee uniform, which he wore during his overseas deployment. (C. Todd ShermanThe Vicksburg Post)

[8/25/03]While most may be yet to come, homecomings have begun in Warren County for military personnel called to active duty for the war on terrorism.

Six additional county residents who were serving a Germany-based deployment with the Vicksburg-based 412th Engineer Command of the U.S. Army Reserve returned Friday.

Just after one of them, Maj. Marshall Banks, met his wife, Jannifer Banks, at the unit’s headquarters on Porters Chapel Road, they went to surprise their 4-year-old son, Marshall Channing Banks, at school. Their son did not know his father was to arrive that day, back from six months overseas.

The youngster ran into his father’s arms for a long bear hug.

“Words cannot describe how I feel,” Jannifer Banks said. “I’m just glad he’s back.”

The reunited family planned to spend much time together the next several days. Maj. Banks said he’d be doing “whatever my wife tells me to.”

“I’ve got a whole list,” Jannifer Banks added.

The other members of the 412th who returned with Banks were Lt. Col. Dan Prine, Maj. Danny Thurmond, Maj. Paul Williams, Sgt. Travis Johnson and Lt. Col. Charles Carson.

The 412th, which coordinates Army engineering efforts, was once set to support coalition forces’ entry into Northern Iraq through Turkey. When that route was not made available, however, its mission was changed to supporting a variety of other efforts from a U.S. base in Heidelberg.

Nearly half of the 33 members of the 412 who were deployed earlier this year have returned home, said Maj. Melody Harrington, the unit’s public affairs officer. She has said she does not expect them to be recalled to active duty under the same orders soon.

About 85 soldiers, including about six local residents, also remain deployed with the other Vicksburg-based Army Reserve unit, the 386th Transportation Company, Staff Sgt. Mokevia Faulkner of that unit said.

All 88 members of the Vicksburg-based 168th Engineer Group remain deployed to the Middle East supporting U.S. Central Command, Maj. Danny Blanton of that unit said.

Their duties include “building and fortifying base camps, and rebuilding and fortifying roads and bridges that may have been damaged during” combat operations in Iraq, he added.

The U.S. military began mobilizing large numbers of reserve and National Guard troops earlier this year, prior to the March 19 beginning of major combat in Iraq. President Bush announced an end to such combat May 1, but some fighting has continued there even as rebuilding efforts have begun.

Also remaining deployed from a Vicksburg-based Army National Guard unit are, in rough figures, eight of the 119 members of the 114th Military Police Company. About 75 of those troops are handling replacement MP duty at Fort Hood, Texas.

Blanton said he did not know when any of the Mississippi Army National Guard troops would be coming home. Last month he had said that word on when those deployments would end might come late this month or in early September.

In what is expected to be a brief break from an overseas deployment of a local law-enforcement officer, Vicksburg Police traffic officer Leonce Young returned home July 30.

Young, 33, who patrols city streets by motorcycle and car, was the first to return to work of 18 total reservists of the Vicksburg police and fire departments and the Warren County Sheriff’s Department who have been called to active military duty since the beginning of the year in support of the global war on terrorism.

A Seabee Petty Officer Second Class in the U.S. Naval Reserve, Young was deployed Feb. 5 to Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the North Pacific, about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines.

“The military is trying to train a group of soldiers for South Korea and what we did is act as the aggressors,” in war games there, Young said.

He added that in his current Navy role he is a driver, and that he is trained to drive Navy construction-battalion and transport equipment.

South Korea’s neighbor North Korea has been identified by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist state and, with Iran and Iraq, was included in what President Bush has called an “axis of evil.”

Young said another part of his unit, a Naval Mobile Construction Battalion based at Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, La., is deployed to the Middle East. That part made television news when it was fired upon by enemy forces, Young said.

Young was sent home from a naval hospital in Guam, following a knee injury on Tinian. He has since been returned by the military to full active-duty status, and last week he remained back at work with the VPD.

He expects he could be called back to active duty any day, though, since his unit remains deployed, with parts remaining in both desert areas of the Middle East and on islands near Korea, he said.

“My unit wasn’t due to come back until October 2004,” he said.

“What I look for in the future is them using more reservists to fill in and let some of the active duty go home,” Young added.

Young served four and a half years in the Navy on active duty, including a selective assignment of 15 months on the command ship U.S.S. LaSalle, which he said is the only white-painted ship in the Navy.

“Basically, the USS LaSalle is like being picked to go to work at the White House,” Young said. “You’ve got to have pretty high marks.”

A 5 1/2-year patrolman with the VPD, Young has been assigned to the traffic division for three years. He is a certified motorcycle-driving instructor.

“I enforce the traffic laws in the city limits and around the city limits of Vicksburg,” Young said.

The other Vicksburg Police officers who remain on deployments that began earlier this year are Patrolmen Cammie Branch, Gina Goodson, Taffi Mills and Trina Naylor and Sgts. Sandra Johnson and Doug King.

The five Warren County Sheriff’s Department personnel who are deployed, deputies John Elfer, Shane Parker, Anthony Walker, Jerry Walker and undersheriff Jeff Riggs, were “all doing OK,” chief of patrol Roy Redditt said last week.

“We stay in correspondence with them,” he said. “They want to be home and we want them home.”

From the Vicksburg Fire Department, Pvts. Nathaniel Bell, Houghton Conley and Ricky Johnson and Lts. Jeff Cockrell and Shane Quimby have been deployed.

Paramedic Alecia Russell was also called to active duty earlier this year but had been released within a month.