(The following story by Katherine Didriksen appeared on the Stamford Advocate website on December 11.)
STAMFORD — Troy Finn was welcomed to Iraq on March 23 by the sound of sirens.
“Lightning! Lightning! Lightning!” the call sign for a chemical attack were the first words he heard as he got off the plane.
A sergeant with the U.S. Army Reserve’s 325th Transportation Company, Finn immediately donned a chemical suit and moved to a fallout shelter.
“We must have heard that (siren) three dozen times in the four hours we were there,” he said. “It was a pretty hard slap in the face with reality.”
After 11 months of service in the Middle East, the Stamford native returned home earlier this week. He greeted his older brother, Tom Finn Jr., and his nieces and nephews, for the first time yesterday.
The homecoming may take some time to sink in.
“It feels wonderful,” said Finn, 32. “You still don’t really believe it.”
“The hardest part is being away from family,” he added.
The family has military experience. Tom Finn is a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve’s 1205th Transportation Railway Operating Battalion and served in the Persian Gulf War for 13 months. Like his brother, he was called up from the U.S. Army Reserve in the past year.
Both attended military camp from the ages of 8 to 16. Initially, it was Troy Finn who wanted to join the military. But when the brothers visited a recruiting office in 1990, Tom Finn enlisted, hoping to see the world and better himself. He graduated from boot camp to the Persian Gulf.
“I’ve learned a lot,” said Tom Finn, 36. “The world needs to be policed. . . . Unfortunately, we only hear about the bad things.”
For the most part, the local populace was appreciative of soldiers’ efforts, he said.
Troy Finn followed in his brother’s footsteps in 1993. It would not be the last time.
Both are conductors for Metro-North Railroad, where their father works as an engineer.
“The railroad as a whole is one big family,” Tom Finn said. To have a family within the family is special, he said.
A conductor on the New Haven Line, he has worked for Metro-North since 1987. Two years ago, Troy Finn began to work on the extra list, filling in for absent employees. Although they grew up on trains together, they rarely get to work as a team.
Troy Finn is anxious to get back on the train. He expects to reacquaint himself with Stamford, including making the adjustment to driving a car rather than a 5-ton truck and refreshing his conductor skills, he said.
Troy Finn and his wife, Amanda, finally will hold their wedding reception on their first anniversary, Jan. 10. Although they had planned to marry a few weeks later, the two moved up the date when they learned he was to ship out.
“I knew he was going to go. . . . But it was very hard,” his wife said.
Letters took a month to reach home from Iraq and letters sent to Finn had to be forwarded numerous times because of the mobile nature of his job as a truck driver.
“I was all over Iraq,” he said. “The support from the people is amazing.”
About 90 percent of the locals were handshaking and blowing kisses, he said.
Care packages, many from people, organizations and businesses that Finn and his fellow soldiers had never heard of before, also boosted morale.
“Receiving mail is so important. . . . It takes you away from things,” he said.
He said he will miss the camaraderie of his fellow soldiers, now friends for life.
Though he does not expect to hear the sirens — which are somewhat like the sounds of fire engines — in Stamford, Troy said it is not something he will forget.
But some memories he would rather not share.
“Things in combat, there are a lot of things I think people shouldn’t know,” he said. “I’m not going to erase it from my memory.”