Guard Garrison Training Center, Hinesville, Ga., April 30, 2011 – Kennesaw’s 277th Maintenance Company is back on Georgia soil after having been deployed for a year in Afghanistan. The unit made its homecoming official during an early evening ceremony at Fort Stewart’s Cottrell Parade field amidst a fanfare of music, and the cheers and tears of more than 100 families, friends and fellow Soldiers.

“On behalf of Maj. Gen. Terry Nesbitt, our Adjutant General, and Maj. Gen. Maria L. Britt, our Army Guard Commander, it’s a great honor to have you home, safe and with you families once again,” Col. Michael Scholes, Sr., who commands the 277th’s parent headquarters, the 78th Homeland Response Force, told the unit’s more than 140 Soldiers who stood before him. “Your state and your nation are very proud of the way you conducted yourselves. I commend you for your actions and for the tenacity with which you lived out your commitment to accomplishing the mission.”

While supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, most of the 277th’s personnel were attached to the 17th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion out of Fort Elendorf in Richardson, Alaska, and stayed at Bagram Air Base in Kabul. Others, who were “sent outside the wire,” went to forward operating bases where they worked along side the Army’s 360th Transportation Company and under the 101st Airborne Division, according to Capt. Anna Smith, the unit’s commander. The 277th also picked up the additional task of providing mentorship to Afghan Army maintenance units throughout those areas, she adds.

“Our job, which I believe our folks did very well, was to provide our Afghan counterparts with best practices on things like running a maintenance shop, supply inventory, putting together and then operating proper maintenance Standing Operating Procedures, documenting work and, basically, the running of a maintenance company,” Smith explained. “We went over everything with them, and I have no doubt we left them with – if you will – the ‘right tools’ with which to get the job done – even without anyone other than their officers and noncommissioned officers looking over their shoulder.”

Probably the unit’s greatest challenge, she and 1st Sgt. Eric Roberson, her senior enlisted leader, agree, was the separation of the unit where various elements of the company ended up not operating together as they have always worked and trained.

“Making things mesh, learning the other unit’s ins and outs, took some time, but only a short time.,” said Roberson, who hails from Dublin and is the full-time product control supervisor with the Guard’s Augusta Field Maintenance Shop.

“Our folks never let that old adage of, ‘this is how we do it,’ get in the way of getting the job done – no matter what the task or who they worked with,” he added. “They got in there, took on the task, got it done and moved on to the next thing. I don’t know that I, or the captain, could be any prouder than we are right now of the way this fine group of Soldiers handled themselves throughout the deployment.”

What some might consider a miracle is the fact that, during the time it was in country, the company only sustained two wounded – one of which was a Soldier who suffered minor injuries from an IED during a convoy detail, the other injured a finger while working on a vehicle.

Smith said with a smile, “We’ve brought them all home. We went to war, we did our jobs, and we all came home.”

Story and photos by Sgt. 1st Class Roy Henry

Public Affairs Office

Georgia Department of Defense