Features

It had started raining and didn’t look to be letting up.

The downpour wasn’t unusual for Smith Barracks, but in the early Springtime, the gray skies made the normally verdant Baumholder hills look neon in contrast.

Sonia Rogowski, though, only smiled.

“I think this is my husband,” she said, looking around at the gust of wind and rain swirling around her. “His way of saying ‘Hi.’ He used to love playing pranks on me.”

She stuck a hand out, allowing the rain to puddle inside her palm, and laughed.

“This would be just like him.”

LIVORNO, Italy – The Port of Livorno hosted multiple U.S. Army units that came together to conduct the reception, staging, and onward movement of the 1st Cavalry Division, Division Sustainment Battalion on March 24. The 39th Transportation Battalion, 16th Sustainment Brigade, 21st Theater Sustainment Command and 598th Transportation Brigade (Surface Deployment and Distribution Command), 839th Transportation Battalion, with the assistance of 1st Calvary Divion’s Port Support Activity, the Italian Armed Forces, and Livorno Port authorities, facilitated the movement of more than 400 pieces of equipment from the port to multiple forward operating sites across Europe.

“If our flight hadn’t been delayed, we would have been at the terminal when the bomb went off, not exactly in the terminal where it was, but we would have been there,” said Enrique “Tato” Rivera, recalling the day he arrived to work for the U.S. Army Garrison Benelux.