When serious facial injuries from an explosion sent Sgt. Breinne Travers home from Afghanistan in August, it meant leaving the soldiers in her unit behind, as she began a journey of healing and rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
Leaving without her unit was excruciating for Travers, a 13-year member of the National Guard’s 379th Engineer Company.
But on Wednesday, those soldiers will join her on American soil. The unit has completed its year-long mobilization and will return to Massachusetts.
Travers, a 31-year-old Marshfield resident who grew up in Norton, is recovering at Walter Reed with her husband, Joe Sullivan, by her side. She won’t be able to attend the homecoming, her mother-in-law Debbie Sullivan said.
But having her unit home safe is a relief to her, Sullivan said.
“They’ve had one hell of a year, I’ll tell you,” said Sullivan, a Marshfield resident and town employee.
The unit has endured multiple injuries caused by improvised explosive devices during their one-year tour, Sullivan said, and were shaken by Travers’ injuries in August.
Travers, then in her second deployment, was providing protection during transport missions and overseeing engineering projects, like the construction of air and ground communication systems.
Travers and Joe Sullivan, who married in September at Walter Reed after many years together, lived in Marshfield until the deployment last February. Both were in the National Guard and both were members of the 379th Engineer Company. It was the unit’s second deployment since 2003.
Sullivan, an 18-year veteran of the unit, was with a different platoon than Travers. He now is serving as her full-time medical attendant at Walter Reed, his mother said.
Having the couple home together has been a relief to both soldiers’ families as well as to both of them, she said.
“I don’t know what it would be like if she had to do it alone,” said Debbie Sullivan, who found out in August that her son would be also coming home to care for Travers. “(That day) I could finally let my shoulders down and not worry so much.”
Debbie Sullivan is the chairwoman of the unit’s Family Readiness Group and will be in Buzzards Bay on Wednesday when some members of the unit come home there. She will be standing in for Travers and her son.
Though disappointed that she won’t be able to make it to the homecoming, Travers kept a typically positive attitude about the situation, Sullivan said.
“She said it’s probably just as well that the attention be on the men and not on me,” said Sullivan.
It is typical of the attitude that has carried Travers through seven horrific months of recovery, Sullivan said.
“Being the person she is and feeling so lucky that she is alive, she’s fighting it all the way,” Sullivan said. “The best thing about it is her attitude is always awesome.”
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Kaitlin Keane may be reached at kkeane@ledger.com.
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