(Megan McCloskey/Stars and Stripes)

Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Dec. 3, 2006: Pvt. Jordan Skinner, 20, of Cincinnati, washes one of 172nd Stryker Brigade’s more than 200 Stryker vehicles. After a four-month extension of their Iraq tour in August, the brigade was heading home to Fort Wainwright, Alaska. Skinner and other soldiers were in the middle of a more than weeklong process of cleaning the vehicles before they were shipped back to Alaska.

Read the story on the preparations here.