Maureen Bell said she’d never forget the dejection in her husband’s voice when he called her to say his tour of duty in Iraq had been extended four months.

“He was trying to be strong, but his morale was down,” she said.

Sgt. Vernon Bell, 31, a Lawrence native, was already on the plane for home last week when the aircraft suddenly turned around, taking him and fellow soldiers in the 172nd Stryker Brigade back to war.

“He said, ‘Babe, I’ve got bad news,'” Maureen Bell said of the phone call she received from her husband Thursday morning. “I said I already knew.”

A week ago, President Bush announced more U.S. troops already in Iraq would be sent to Baghdad because of increased sectarian killings. That meant many soldiers had their tours of duty extended. On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved an extension of the Stryker Brigade’s deployment.

After a year in Iraq, the Stryker Brigade had been scheduled to return to its home base at Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks, Alaska.

Maureen Bell, who stayed in Fairbanks while her husband went to war, was unhappy with how the Army broke the news to families eagerly awaiting the return of their loved ones. It wasn’t until about midnight Wednesday that they received official word, she said. That was after it had been in the newspapers and after rumors had spread throughout the base.

“We were told at the last minute, at the 12th hour,” she said. “When all this goes through, we can’t contact our husbands because they (the military) black out the lines.”

Vernon Bell is with a support unit in the brigade. He has been in the Army 14 years and with the brigade three years. The brigade uses the new Stryker wheeled armored fighting vehicle. U.S. commanders have said the Stryker is more suited for urban warfare than the tracked Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

Maureen Bell had taken off two weeks from work so she could be with her husband when he returned. But the hardest part, she said, was breaking the news to their two daughters, ages 10 and 5, and their son, 8, that their father wasn’t coming home yet.

“It was especially hard on our oldest, because she is Daddy’s girl,” Maureen Bell said. “She blames herself because she thought she did everything he asked her to do: to be my right hand, take care of me and to clean her room. To have my daughter cry in my arms – it really hurts.”