Art Hackett:
But first, about 200 members of the Wisconsin guard's 115th fighter wing returned home to Madison Thursday, returning from a two-month deployment to Iraq. While the airmen are now home, some 3,200 members of the Wisconsin National Guard's 32nd infantry brigade combat team remain in Iraq and are not expected home until after the Christmas holidays. But that tour is heading into the homestretch, and here with more about what the 32nd has accomplished is someone deployed with the brigade. Lieutenant Colonel Tim Donovan in Baghdad, good evening. Here in Wisconsin we've been...

Tim Donovan:
Good evening, Art.

Art Hackett:
Good evening. Here in Wisconsin we've been focusing on last week's shootings at Fort Hood in Texas. What's been the reaction of the soldiers in Iraq to goings-on over here?  

Tim Donovan:
Well, it's a terrible tragedy. We heard about it, of course, just the same way you did in the news. All of us who wear U.S. Army uniforms are greatly saddened by the loss of fellow soldiers, especially at a place like Fort Hood. You expect, although you don't like it to happen, but you expect that in a combat zone soldiers may lose their lives. But it's sure not supposed to happen at a soldier readiness center at a place like Fort Hood, Texas. Our heart goes out to all of the victims, the survivors, the witnesses and certainly to the families.

Art Hackett:
The soldiers who were victims were involved in providing mental health services to soldiers in the field. That's what they were going to be doing. Help people understand how critical that mission is for the men and women over there.  

Tim Donovan:
Well, I suppose mental health needs vary from soldier to soldier based on the situation, the soldier's mission, the things the soldier's been exposed to. This is a stressful environment. It's a combat zone. We live and work under constant threat of hostile action. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen occasionally. Our soldiers are serving far from home, far away from their families, their friends, their loved ones, all of their support structures. So we become a family over here and do the best we can. But it's a stressful, difficult life, and some people handle that better than others. And then, of course, there are soldiers who experience the real horrors of military action. Fortunately, we haven't experienced those here ourselves, although in Baghdad we're certainly aware of some despicable acts that have been directed against innocent civilians that haven't affected us directly, but it's life in the combat zone.

Art Hackett:
The 32nd left for Iraq in February and March. You're past the halfway point of your deployment. What are some of the more significant changes that you've observed during the time you've been in theater?  

Tim Donovan:
Since we got here in May, there have been a number of changes. Let me just run through a couple of them, because they're all changes that represent progress. A year ago, the largest detention facility on the planet was at Camp Bucca, a place in southern Iraq, guarded by Wisconsin National Guard soldiers, who also provide the administrative support of this camp. That camp is now closed. It's gone. So what was once the largest detention facility on earth is now closed and it was closed by Wisconsin National Guard forces, who not only moved the detainees from Camp Bucca to other detention facilities, but trained Iraqi correctional officers and inspected to verify the international standards for detention facilities were met by the places where these detainees would go. That's all work done by Wisconsin guardsmen and it represents great progress. Here in the international zone we've turned over many formerly US-controlled properties back to the government of Iraq. That's one of our missions, the 32nd's brigade headquarter missions here in Baghdad. This all represents progress. The largest hospital in the international zone operated for six plus years by U.S. military forces we turned over to the government of Iraq on Oct. 1. All these little steps are significant pieces of progress, and that's what's going to be required to make Iraq successful, and we've been witness to all of that. We're right at the center of all these things.

Art Hackett:
Those are missions you've completed. What are some upcoming missions the troops are going to be involved in?  

Tim Donovan:
Well, a lot of these missions will just continue until we hand over our mission to the people who are going to come in in a couple of months to relieve us. Here in the international zone we'll continue turning over more properties. We've got several more significant properties to turn over to the government of Iraq in the coming eight weeks before we're ready to leave here and turn this mission over. But, again, we're either continuing ongoing missions or continuing to successfully complete the little parts and pieces that make up successful missions, and that will be our focus for the rest of our time here.

Art Hackett:
You sort of answered this question already, but when you left, there was some talk that members of the 32nd might be, to some degree, turning out the lights on some things. Do you get the feeling that's actually going to be happening?  

Tim Donovan:
Well, we turned out the lights at the theater internment facility at Camp Bucca. It's now literally being disassembled by Wisconsin National Guard members. We turned out the lights there. There's still work to be done after the 32nd brigade leaves. Everyone handles their piece of the mission and hands over to the group that replaces it a little less work because the work that we've already accomplished has been completed. So when we turn over the mission here in the international zone in a month or so to the Texas National Guard troops who will replace us, we're turning over a slightly smaller mission because we will have accomplished so much of it, and they'll turn it over to whoever relieves them as an even smaller mission yet. So that's how progress is made, incrementally, in kind of a deliberate, but steady process that restores Iraq to the control of the government of Iraq and requires less direct U.S. involvement.  

Art Hackett:
And I'll ask the last question, need a quick answer. What do you guys over there think of the Packers’ season thus far?  

Tim Donovan:
Well, Art, we left Wisconsin never thinking that you people would let Brett Favre sign with the Minnesota Vikings. So we're really disappointed in you. And we hope that when we get back to Wisconsin, Brett Favre will take off that purple jersey and life will return to normal. We watch Packer games here at odd hours, including like 3:00 in the morning, we have to get up to watch Monday night football or an evening game takes us from midnight to 3:00 in the morning. We do get to watch our Packers when they're on armed forces network.

Art Hackett:
Odd hours, and there have been some odd games. Col. Donovan, thanks very much.  

Tim Donovan:
All right, Art. Thank you.