Steven Ingrassia relaxes with his parents, Jacqueline and Frank, and girlfriend, Jessica English, over the holidays, after a tour of duty in Iraq.
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer
There are yellow balloons on the mailbox, and a "Welcome Home" sign on their Upper Freehold front lawn. Jacqueline and Frank Ingrassia are thrilled to have their only child, Steven, home after a tour of duty in Iraq.
Every day Steven, 25, was gone was "gut-wrenching" for the couple, his mother, Jacquie, said.
"I didn’t want to watch the news, but I had to," said Jacquie. "Frank doesn’t say much about it, but I know that it was absolutely killing him. It really took a toll on him. It was very stressful."
Jacquie, known as "Lady Jay" to harness racing fans, is the only female driver to win a Triple Crown race. Her lifetime racing wins total 999. Her 1,000th victory should come any day.
But now none of that matters. Her son is back home.
Ingrassia’s tour of duty gave him a new appreciation for the simple things in life. Everyone in his unit came home.
"It’s a tremendous thing to come home," he said. "There’s nothing about life you don’t appreciate, like taking a hot shower."
Ingrassia is grateful for all the support shown by friends and strangers.
"Not everyone is happy about being there, but it is something they have to do," he said. "They’re doing it for their country. It’s tough on all of them. Once you get back, you appreciate everything a lot more."
Ingrassia, who grew up in the township, graduated from Allentown High School in 1986. He has been in the Army Reserve since the age of 18.
His tour in Iraq came abruptly, when his unit was activated in February and given only five days’ notice that it was on its way. His first thought was how to break the news to his mother and his girlfriend, Jessica English.
Ingrassia arrived in the Middle East on May 15.
"I expected to get dropped off in the middle of a war zone," he said.
But his unit first stopped in Kuwait, where the soldiers slept 115 to a tent on the floor.
His first living quarters in Baghdad were in an abandoned salt factory. He was later based at Baghdad Airport, where his unit guarded Iraqi prisoners, who ranged from everyday looters to prisoners of war.
"At the prison, we lived in an abandoned Iraqi barracks that was remodeled by a smart bomb," Ingrassia said. "It was definitely a fixer-upper."
While based there, his unit came under occasional mortar fire.
"There was direct fire outside the base," he said. "You could hear people at the gates getting shot at once in a while."
Ingrassia was on convoys from Baghdad to other prisons in Abu and Talil. He saw Baghdad from the convoy route from Kuwait.
"You tried to stay inside the airport as much as possible," he said. "It was relatively safe."
Ingrassia’s impression of the Iraqis was a little "jaded." He and the other guards had to deal with some rioting in the prison."
"We didn’t deal with the best," he said. "The translators were very good, very courteous. The prisoner element was often disrespectful. They didn’t want us there."
Then there was the heat.
Ingrassia sent his parents a photo of him holding a thermometer, which measured up to 120 degrees. The mercury was at the top.
"We washed Third World-style, with our clothes in big water troughs," he said. "There was a rudimentary shower set up."
He considered himself fortunate. Some soldiers in northern Iraq were cleaning up with baby wipes.
For the first couple of months, food consisted of the Army’s ready-to-eat meals.
"In Baghdad, they set up a mobile kitchen and gave us hot meals. That was a blessing," he said.
On the way home, his unit made a stop in Kuwait.
"We called it Disneyland," he laughed. "There was a Burger King and a Subway. That was paradise."
The worst part of his tour was being away from his family and girlfriend, he said.
"We worked 13-hour days and were exhausted, but I still thought about them all day," he said.
Ingrassia would call whenever he could get to a satellite phone and would use the Internet for a half-hour every two days. He wrote a letter every day to Jess, who coped by trying to get out of the house and not sit at home worrying.
"I was depressed and crying a lot," she said. "I’d get a letter almost daily, but it wasn’t the same."
Her brother, a Marine, also served in Iraq and came home safely.
The trip home took 50 hours. Ingrassia’s unit touched down on American soil in the early hours of Dec. 6, at their base in Fort Lee, Va.
"The whole unit came home together," he said. "It’s nice we didn’t have to leave anybody behind. Thankfully, we didn’t lose anybody."
Ingrassia has five months left in the Army. He’s been assured he will not be called overseas again.
Soon he will be back at his "real" job as a police officer in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
Soon too, his mother will be in the winner’s circle for the 1,000th time to earn another place in the record books.
"I want the Army personnel to know how much people think and care about them," she said. "People would ask me on a daily basis, ‘How’s your son?’ "