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Well-wishers wait
Andrea Domaskin, The Forum
Published Thursday, March 22, 2007
Sgt. Sam Floberg was supposed to arrive at Hector International Airport about 5:21 p.m.Instead, mechanical problems and bad weather delayed the 29-year-old North Dakota National Guard soldier for hours as dozens of family, friends and well-wishers waited impatiently.
“It’s been awful. Just awful,” said Floberg’s mother, Suzie DeClercq.
Finally, around 11:20 p.m., her injured son walked into the airport terminal using a cane. Flag-bearing veterans groups and supports – American Legion, Amvets, Vietnam Veterans of America, Patriot Guard Riders among them – lined the stairs, and a crowd cheered below.
“I was not expecting this kind of reception, especially five hours after,” Floberg said.
For many, Floberg isn’t the first soldier they’ve come to meet.
“We came to welcome our hero to Fargo,” said Orlyen Stensgard, a member of the American Legion in Fargo and a veteran of Korea. “We do this a lot when we know about it.”
Floberg, a member of the 188th Air Defense Artillery unit, lost his right leg after being attacked by insurgents in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day.
He has a prosthetic leg and has been receiving outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., since Christmas-time. He has been staying at a hotel at the complex called Mologne House. “Very nice, no complaints,” DeClercq said.
Floberg will be home for a month. He plans to greet fellow members of the unit when they return from Afghanistan.
About 114 are expected to arrive in Fort Lewis, Wash., today and another 29 are expected in about a week. Both groups will arrive in North Dakota about a week after they land in Washington.
Some of those soldiers’ mothers and a few fiancées drove from Bismarck on Wednesday to welcome Floberg home.
“He’s one of my boys. He’s one of our soldiers,” said Joyce Mehrer, whose son Curtis served with Floberg but was killed in June. “I care and worry about all our kids that are over there.”
Floberg is scheduled to fly back to the medical center April 19, DeClercq said.
“I’m tempted to drive him out there because
I don’t trust the planes anymore,” she said.