News
Local
Soldier Goes from Iraq to Italy
By Elizabeth Prata
Army Sgt. Scott A. Paquette, son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard
Wildes of Colbath Road in New Gloucester, has returned
to the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy, after
completing a deployment to Iraq in support of Operation
Iraqi Freedom with additional participation in Operation
Northern Delay.
During Operation Northern Delay at Bashir Airfield,
the brigade paratroopers established the northernmost
coalition offensive boundary and created a stable
logistical intersecting point to allow the introduction
of equipment
and troops into the theater. The operation was the
largest airborne assault since World War II and forced
Iraqi army to maintain approximately six divisions
in the area to protect their northern flank, providing
strategic relief for the Coalition Forces advancing
on Baghdad.
The multiple operations missions of the brigade paratroopers
included seizing the city of Kirkuk, the northern
oil fields and several military airfields, thousands
of enemy weapons and explosives, millions of dinars
worth of terrorist funds, and defeated organized military
resistance and arrested hundreds of terrorist and
former regime loyalists.
Paquette is a team leader in the Army with more than
five years of military service. He is a 1995 graduate
of Lewiston High School.
