CHAPTER NINEDecember 2005
After his first deployment, Briggs was recognized for his ability as a leader, and the war needed leaders, especially when the old ones were being taken from the battlefield on stretchers. Briggs’s promotion to sergeant just prior to his return home between combat tours came quickly.
Briggs’s battalion arrived home a week before Christmas and was told to disappear until the first week of January 2006. That was when they were to begin workup training for their return to Iraq in July.
The flight home on a chartered airline jet was the first time Briggs could relax in months. The flight attendants were attractive and dressed in patriotic red, white, and blue. There were banners and “Welcome Home” signs scattered about the cabin, and the flight crew took the time t
