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wwltv.com
Houma guardsmen gets quick trip home to see wife, newborn
03:27 PM CST on Friday, February 4, 2005
KENNER -- Four days after military officials plucked him from the Iraqi countryside and put him on a plane, Jonathan Boudreaux, 22, arrived at Louis Armstrong International Airport Thursday evening, dazed and glassy-eyed but still smiling.
National Guard Spec. Jonathan Boudreaux greets his wife, Heather, and newborn son, Jonathan Jr., after eight months away from home. Boudreaux, from Thibodaux, is home on a two-week leave from Iraq, where he has been stationed the past five months.
He looked forward to seeing his pregnant wife, Heather, for the first time in eight months, a hot shower and a meal of Popeye’s or Taco Bell -- the foods he had missed most while overseas.
And he looked forward to witnessing the birth of their first child, a boy, scheduled for Saturday.
"I’m really happy to be home," he said, waiting for his wife and father-in-law to appear to chauffeur him back to his Thibodaux home after five months spent in the Middle East.
It was a trip that took him from Iraq to Kuwait to Germany to Atlanta to Dallas to Houston before arriving in Kenner.
In two weeks, he goes back to Iraq.
As he sat, Boudreaux, a National Guard specialist and member of the Houma-based Charlie Company and the brigade that last month lost seven soldiers in a roadside bombing that ripped apart their Bradley combat vehicle -- pulled several images from a white envelope to reveal various photos of a smiling Sgt. Huey Fassbender III, 25, of LaPlace. "He was my good friend," he said, and his roommate. "I lost him."
Feb. 22 will mark five years since Boudreaux, who otherwise works as a Lafourche Parish deputy, joined the National Guard. He said he knew from the beginning he’d face combat.
"I knew I was gonna be deployed when I was in basic," he said.
On Sept. 11, 2001, he was eating in the lunch hall when he saw the footage of the World Trade Center towers toppling.
"That’s when I knew," he said.
From where he has been stationed, south of Baghdad, Boudreaux said, he hasn’t seen much of the violence that has been a mainstay of news coverage for the past two years.
"That the attacks are still happening is a shock to me," he said.
Yet, since his friends and fellow soldiers were killed, "I don’t feel safe at all anymore," he said. "I thought it was safe."
Boudreaux will be returning to Iraq for what he has been told will be another six or seven months. When he comes home for good, he’ll have another 11 months of service as a reservist.
"I’m ready to fulfill the obligations that I made when I swore in," he said with some pause. "I volunteered to do this, and I’ll do it for as long as I signed for."
After that, he said, he’s ready to get back to his normal job.
As Boudreaux spoke, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his father-in-law and wife, carrying a blue-swathed bundle in her arms. Heather Boudreaux gave birth Monday, six days early and at the same time her husband was getting on the plane to come home. She hadn’t told him yet.
"I’m just glad he’s home, just glad to seen him," said Heather’s father, Danny Harris, as Jonathan Boudreaux stood over his tiny son, Jonathan Jr., for the first time, his amazement shining through his fatigue.
"It’s been hard on her especially," Harris said of his 19-year-old daughter, "especially when those boys got killed."
Heather offered quietly, "I’m happy."
