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CAMP VICTORY, Kuwait - Their families scattered, their futures uncertain, thousands of soldiers in regions destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath are returning from combat to chaos.

And nearly two weeks after the storm, many of these soldiers - some of whom had to continue fighting in Iraq even as they learned that their homes had been destroyed - are still waiting to learn if family members have survived.

Among those: Spc. Brandon Brewer. “I still haven't heard from my father,” the southeast New Orleans soldier said as he awaited a flight home along with other members of the Louisiana-based 256th Brigade Combat Team on Friday. “It just gets to the point that you just don't know what to do anymore.”

Brewer also spent nearly a week wondering about the fate of his 7-year-old daughter, Brianna, before learning she had escaped to Tampa, Fla. Despite that, he was not one of the more than 60 soldiers deemed to have suffered an extraordinary loss meriting an emergency ticket home. Like nearly 500 other members of the 256th who have told the Army they were directly affected by the storm, Brewer's ticket was earned not by tragic circumstance but by fortunate timing: The 3,700-person brigade was already scheduled to return home this month after serving one year in Iraq.

Brig. Gen. Sean Byrne, who was sent to Kuwait to organize the team that is helping affected soldiers take care of disaster-related problems and concerns, said he can remember no time like this in the past.

“This is the first time I know of that we have soldiers coming right out of a combat zone and right into a disaster zone,” he said.

Brewer put it another way. “You want to go home so bad. But we get to go home to a hellhole.”

Army officials are trying to make it a bit more bearable by breaking down the red tape that limits how quickly soldiers can get from war tours to home.

The processing of soldiers at this base, designated specifically as the place through which members of the Army are sent home, usually takes about two weeks. Officials say they are trying to get affected soldiers out in 48 hours or less.

One hundred soldiers, most with the New Orleans-based 1st Battalion, 141st Field Artillery Regiment, arrived in Louisiana on Friday. The few hundred remaining members were expected to fly home from Kuwait soon.

At least 80 additional soldiers from the Mississippi-based 155th Brigade Combat Team are expected to receive word that they have been given clearance to head home and attend to family or property-related emergencies. Hundreds more say they have been affected, but will not likely be released until their tours of duty are up, around January, officials said.

Meanwhile, many soldiers continue an agonizing wait made all the more unbearable by troubles with communications both at home and in Iraq. Though troops communicate with family members today with an ease unfathomable in past conflicts, many must still wait in long lines at on-base Internet cafes and some only have time to do that once every few days.

“We still had three or four days of missions left when everyone began to figure out how bad it had gotten,” said Sgt. Christopher Terese, who lives in New Orleans and is also still hoping to hear from some family members. “Then, when you get to the phones, you have to stand in line for two or three hours.”

The Army says it has collected information from soldiers to help them locate loved ones, but there is only so much the military can do in a time when evacuees in places from Utah to Texas to New Jersey are still being counted and bodies are still being discovered.

“I gave them information on my sister and two nieces last week,” said 1st Lt. Henry Trudell as he waited for his plane home Friday afternoon. “I don't know what's happened since then.”

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Reporter Matthew D. LaPlante and photographer Rick Egan are traveling in the Middle East with Utah-based military units. Daily online dispatches, including additional information about and photographs of the troops with whom they are assigned, may be found at http://www.sltrib.com/iraq. You may reach LaPlante and Egan at iraq@sltrib.com.