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Return from the Sinai By Myles Murphy Ashland Daily Tidings Ashland's National Guard is coming home. The 484 members of the Ashland-based Oregon Army National Guard 1st Battalion, 186th Infantry Brigade will begin arriving in Medford on Friday in the first of two waves returning from a nine-month peacekeeping mission in the Sinai. "It's been a hard nine months," Guardsman wife Jennifer Hanson said. A photo of Lt. Col. Daniel Cameron, currently on active duty in the Sinai Peninsula, hangs in an empty hallway at Ashland 's National Guard Armory. Cameron is scheduled to return home Feb. 24. Ashland Daily Tidings/DENISE BARATTA Jennifer's husband, former Ashland City Councilor Cameron Hanson and a member of the National Guard, left for the Middle East in May with the rest of his brigade following a large send-off ceremony featuring inspiring speeches from state and local officials. Mothers, fathers, husbands, wives - all have been missed in the long nine months. "It's felt like it's been two or three years since he's been gone," Hanson said. Members of the Ashland-based brigade have been deployed in the Sinai since July to aid in a peacekeeping mission to maintain a U.S. presence on the border between Egypt and Israel in accordance with the 1979 Camp David accords. The soldiers replaced a similar force based in Arkansas, as personnel circulate to keep up the U.S. presence. While the troop mission did not have any direct link to operations in Afghanistan or preparations for military action in the Middle East, its deployment was the direct result of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to Maj. Gen. Alexander Burgin, commander of the Oregon National Guard. The operation was the largest overseas deployment of the Oregon National Guard since World War II, according to guard officials. The 186th is made up of 484 men and women from Southern Oregon communities, including Ashland residents and Southern Oregon University students. They range in ages from 18 to their 40s, but most are in their mid-20s. There are 14 members from Ashland, four members from Talent and eight from Phoenix. "They had a very successful mission and soldiers all performed well," Deputy Public Affairs Officer Kay Fristad said. "It should be quite a homecoming." About half of the soldiers will arrive at the Medford Airport between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Friday, flying in on three aircraft. They will be met by transport buses and taken to the Medford Armory at 1701 South Pacific Hwy. in Medford, where friends, family and community members will greet them for a return celebration at 2:30 p.m. Newly elected Governor Ted Kulongoski, Congressman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Major General Burgin will be among the dignitaries expected to attend. A second return mission will bring the remaining soldiers home Jan. 24. Specific times and details of that arrival will be announced at a later time. Hanson will be on the first wave, to the delight of his wife. "More than anything I want to hug and snuggle and catch up on nine months," Jennifer Hanson said. "And I figure he'll want Chinese food. He wasn't able to get any over there." LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -