Queens Guard unit home from Afghanistan

Nearly a year had passed since they last set foot on American soil - twelve months since they had hugged and kissed their husbands and wives or eaten a home-cooked meal.
Still in fatigues, the two-dozen soldiers of New York’s Army National Guard 4th Finance Detachment climbed off a coach bus - aptly emblazoned with “Coach USA” in red, white and blue - and into the stone-cold chill of northeastern Queens around 10 a.m. on Friday, January 30. For the last 10 months of a yearlong deployment, Bagram, Afghanistan was home for these young soldiers whose median age is 24.
Under the hum of yellow halogen lights and “Welcome Home” balloons in the Whitestone Armory’s gym, soldiers mingled and they shared war stories with military veterans who greeted them with salutes and a couple of four-foot party subs.
The simple fact that the members of the 4th Finance Detachment had returned as a unit, rather than as individuals, underscored how different the soldiers’ wartime experience had been from the American Legion and Marine Corps League members who reminisced about their tours in Vietnam and Korea and their lonely journeys home.
One thing was the same, however: the sense of immediate comfort upon landing in the U.S.
“It just feels good to be home,” said Specialist Marisol Sierra-Mateo of East Elmhurst. “It was a long, long year - very long year.”
Asked if she would miss anything about Afghanistan, Sierra-Mateo responded “No” without pause.
But having returned to a country in fiscal turmoil, Specialist Ray Quiñones - who spoke of the “shock” of leaving the theater of war - said he would miss the steady paycheck he had gotten used to overseas.
“It’s a different world out there that most people never get to see, and to come back here you’re just, you know, hit back with reality, you know?” he said. “From what I’ve heard it’s not that good out there - a lot of people getting laid off and stuff like that.”
While Quiñones and the other soldiers from the 4th Finance Detachment were not dealing in sub-prime mortgages or bundling credit in Afghanistan, the Yonkers native said his National Guard duties did heighten his understanding of the financial woes back home. In Afghanistan, the unit provided financial management support to deployed soldiers and civilian contractors.
Brigadier General Mike Swezey, in addressing the unit toward the end of the welcoming ceremony, described the soldiers’ job as such: “Some people are the fine edge of the blade - they’re the ones going out there kicking the doors, the infantry guys. But that fine edge and that blade, it isn’t gonna cut anything unless it’s backed up by a handle and the rest of the knife - that’s our job.”
“We finance the fight so to speak,” explained Major Miguel Castillo, the administrative officer for all finance units based in the Whitestone Armory. Castillo added that his soldiers ensure that the financial flow continues unabated, which means routine pick-ups ‘outside the wire’ of duffel bags filled with money. Additionally, Castillo said, finance unit soldiers are tasked with security patrols in dangerous areas.
While there were no casualties within the 4th Finance Detachment, some of the soldiers nonchalantly recalled coming under heavy sniper and RPG - rocket propelled grenade - fire, as they munched on cold cuts in the cavernous armory.
It was that element of danger, not to mention the thousands of miles between Sandra Santos and her son, Specialist Nicholas Camacho, that led the Maspeth mother to pray during his deployment.
“We have a lot of military family on both our Mom and our Dad’s side, so it’s good to see someone else come home, especially our son,” said Santos, who was joined by her husband Alejandro and her youngest son Isaac.
“We always kept him in our prayers, and trusted in God that he would bring him back - and not only him, for all of them that came back,” Alejandro said.
Many of the Guard members said it was the element of togetherness, that strong-as-steel bond among veterans of wartime that will stick with them and guide them as they return to civilian life.
“Once you get deployed, it’s a certain brotherhood that you build that most civilians don’t understand,” Quiñones said. “And you keep in touch with these guys ‘cause they’ve had your back out there - you’ve had each other’s back. It’s stuff like that that you never forget.”
Sierra-Mateo, whose husband had presented her with a plaque and a bouquet of roses upon her return, agreed. But for now she was happy to be back in America, even if it meant parting ways with her fellow soldiers, she said.
“It’s something I’m always going to keep with me and I did learn a lot and I grew a lot from it,” Sierra-Mateo said. “But,” she added with a satisfied smile, “home is home.”