Perspective: Extended deployments shake Fort Richardson families

Claire Lettow was running on a treadmill, watching cable news, when she learned that her fiance would be at war three months longer than expected. Cassie Townsend, a teacher's aide, got the news about her husband's extension in a cell phone call outside a classroom.

Word that the roughly 3,500 Fort Richardson paratroopers deployed to Iraq won't be coming home in October after all came suddenly to their loved ones late Wednesday morning, not totally unexpected but a stomach-dropping disappointment none the less.

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