Since arriving home from Iraq two weeks ago in time for the birth of his second son, Sgt. Michael Lubinski has been in amateur photographer heaven. Today, he’ll supplement the dozens of baby pictures with photos of fireworks.

It’s a rare break from military routine for Lubinski who, like most of the 3,200 Wisconsin National Guard members in Iraq, works 12-hour days, six days a week. And it will be over in a flash: On Monday, he’ll resume his deployment.

But for now, Lubinski and about 100 members of the Guard’s 32nd Brigade Combat Team are back in the state for the Independence Day weekend, enjoying a brief taste of the freedom and relaxation most take for granted.

With no wartime rationing or draft to regularly jog our memories, and with fewer casualties during the past year or so, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have become invisible to those people without loved ones serving overseas.

“Many people in uniform are disgusted that Army and Navy and Marine Corps are at war while America is at the mall,” said John Hall, UW-Madison’s new military historian.

Robert Grinage’s family in Barron, in northwest Wisconsin, hasn’t forgotten. On Friday, they were awaiting the arrival of the 23-year-old sergeant. Grinage, 23, started his two-week leave from Camp Bucca, a detention camp near Iraq’s southern border, only to have his plane grounded by sandstorms late Thursday in Kuwait.

His father, Staff Sgt. Scott Grinage, 51, is a full-time employee of the Wisconsin National Guard at the armory in Black River Falls. He has been deployed overseas twice during his decades-long career in the Navy and the Guard and was in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 when the country was deteriorating in bloodshed and chaos.

“We did convoy operations, which is a little more stressful,” the father said. “He’s not going to go outside the wire as much as we did,” he said of his son. That means the tour may be safer, and more tedious. Still, it’s been hard for the elder Grinage.

“Just him being gone where you can’t keep an eye on him from day to day is different,” Grinage said. “I’ve definitely felt more empty. Something’s missing, you know.”

The brigade’s deployment of 3,200 soldiers is its largest operational mobilization since World War II. Military commanders say they expect to maintain a peacekeeping and advisory presence in Iraq for many years. Meanwhile, they are ramping up military action in Afghanistan.

Lubinski, 25, the sergeant heading back to Camp Taji, north of Baghdad, said people would be wrong to think that the importance of the mission in Iraq is waning — or the danger.

“The people here are not paying attention,” Lubinski said. “The populace is really easily distracted and doesn’t know what we’re doing.”

Lubinski is blunt about the Iraqis he’s seen being trained to take over detention facilities like Camp Taji next year. “They are fairly undisciplined and kind of lazy,” he said.

Military commanders regularly point to progress in handing over authority to the Iraqis, while acknowledging uncertainty and hazards.

“Should we stay or should we go? I would fall in on the side of staying because if we go too soon there’s going to be problems there,” Lubinski said. “And the longer we stay, the better for that country.”