Sailor hits The Beach in homecoming

Dick Benoit

Thursday, Aug. 7, 2003 | 9:12 a.m.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Gus Berio has spent about half of his 15-plus years in the Navy and Navy Reserve as a hospital corpsman serving with Marines, but he didn't "hit the beach" until he returned to Las Vegas last week. That's when he found himself the center of attention at The Beach nightclub.

Berio returned Thursday from a four-month deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom that included stints in Kuwait as part of Fox Co. of the Marines 2nd Battalion, 23rd Regiment and at Camp Pendleton, Calif., where he helped process more Marines deploying overseas.

Berio stopped by to visit with some of his civilian co-workers at Rainbow Medical Center on Nellis Boulevard and Boulder Highway on Friday afternoon and was immediately invited to join them at an American Heart Association reception at The Beach. There, the returning veteran became an impromptu guest of honor, was given a patriotic hat to wear and toasted roundly by all.

Berio had returned to the United States in June from his duties with a trauma unit in Kuwait.

"We arrived to big welcome home events with lots of families and friends at March Air Force Base in Riverside and at Camp Pendleton," he said. "It made me feel proud, even though my family wasn't there."

The Las Vegas sailor, typical of many reservists activated for the war on terrorism, arrived back home in Las Vegas last week by himself on a commercial flight. A friend picked him up at the airport. No marching bands and banners greeted him, just grateful family including his wife, Stephanie, daughter Zenna and Stephanie's mother, Karen Smith.

Berio has worked for Rainbow Medical Centers for two years and will be back to work soon after some well deserved time off following his military active duty.

"They call me the minuteman at work," Berio said -- not because of his reservist affiliation, but because he's always willing to respond to work shifts at any of the several Rainbow Medical Centers in town.

In brief