Frederica Freyberg:
But first, the recent return of the Wisconsin National Guard’s 951st engineer company means the 100 members are folded back into the fabric of life stateside. The very decorated unit lost one soldier and at least 14 others sustained injuries in their mission, clearing roads of improvised explosive devices or IEDs.

Chet Millard:
You’re constantly on the lookout for anything that looks out of place. A wire leading off that shouldn't be there, disturbed spot in the earth that shouldn't be there. The road is completely packed down except one spot looks like it's been dug up and refilled. You really are at a heightened state. But you need to learn to differentiate from here to there. You need to be able to say ‘Well, OK, now I'm driving through Cataract, Wisconsin.’ OK, that patch on the side of the road is just where the county workers dug it up.’

Frederica Freyberg:
Hard to put the brakes on the 24/7 hyper-vigilance of the front line, especially when the mission was by its very nature among the most dangerous. Soldiers of the 951st out of Rhinelander have been home just over a month. The homecoming could not have come too soon for families that endured a painful wait. Especially once the scope of the dangerous duty came into sharp focus.

Dawn Millard:
To walk in there and sit there and look at that casket and realize how close you come, it's scary.

Frederica Freyberg:
Dawn Millard, filled with fear after attending the funeral of another soldier of the 951st as she waited for her own husband's safe return, because Chet Millard, platoon commander, was among those engaged in a most dangerous mission. When the photo of him wounded and waiting for medi-vac hit the cover of Time magazine this past fall, the full weight of the work in Afghanistan sunk in for his wife.

Chet Millard:
Until the day I got hit she didn't have a full grasp of what it is we actually did. She knew we did something with routes, we had the most heavily armored equipment there is but did not know we were the ones out looking for them.

Frederica Freyberg:
Out looking for bombs. Improvised explosive devices. Chet Millard made it out injured but alive. Made it home in late November with the rest of the unit, minus one. It was a unit so heavily decorated with purple hearts and combat action badges and bronze stars, it goes down in Wisconsin National Guard history. Although, as Chet Millard says, all those awards mean some bad things have happened.

Chet Millard:
We were the ones that tried finding the IEDs. You may travel the same route five, six times and not find anything. The next time you go down it you might get blown up five or six times.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so it was in early September, when an insurgent detonated an IED under his truck.

Chet Millard:
Driving down the road, the first two vehicles passed over the top of it, the triggerman hit my vehicle. He saw me going, lit it up, and boom. As soon as I called and said I need a medic, 30, 40 seconds, there was people climbing on top of my vehicle, ripping doors open, popping hatches, cutting seatbelts, getting us out of the truck.

Frederica Freyberg:
For his part, Millard suffered a mild traumatic brain injury.

Chet Millard:
They will not know the full effect for six, eight months. When I get tired, I start stuttering when I talk. Constant headache from the time I get up to when I go to sleep. Sometimes it's heavy, sometimes just a dull ache.

Frederica Freyberg:
And yet, Millard says he feels very lucky. Lucky to be alive and back home.

Chet Millard:
It's nice. Sleep in my own bed, don't have to worry about the incoming artillery rounds.

Frederica Freyberg:
The worry at home on the part of his wife and family has been replaced by what seems like sheer delight.

Dawn Millard:
It's perma-grin. Definitely. We’re just glad he’s here.

Daughter:
I want to help.

Frederica Freyberg:
Dawn Millard's broad smile and the sounds of the couple's children all giggles as they whack the ball around with Dad again, spell a very happy homecoming for this veteran of two tours. Chet Millard says if called to duty again, he'll go. But he won't volunteer.

Chet Millard:
I've missed so many anniversaries and birthdays and Christmases and other holidays because of the military, either schools I've had to be at or two deployments now, that no, I don't want to miss any more than I have to.

Frederica Freyberg:
As for the surge of troops into Afghanistan, Sgt. Millard says he thinks it's a move in the right direction. He says his unit was stretched very thin and he believes overall, more troops are sorely needed. Millard is expected to return to his job as a state prison guard this month.