Families welcome back troops from Afghanistan

As the first of 70 soldiers returning from a year in Afghanistan stepped off a C-130 cargo plane Thursday at the Air Guard base in Reno, a cheer rang out from the crowd.

"Faster, faster," Gardnerville resident Diane Bennett quietly said as she watched the soldiers march toward the families.

Bennette and her husband Brad were waiting for son, Corp. Wade Bennett, at the Nevada Air Guard base in Reno on Thursday morning as he arrived back home after serving with the Guard's 1/22st Cavalry Squadron.

"Dad!" Elijah Deal, 7, yelled at the top of his little lungs.

His dad couldn't hear him. Sgt. Johnny Deal was too far away on the tarmac, but at least it was a much shorter distance than where he had just come from.

Before the plane arrived, Jessica Marshall of Carson City was tense and quiet.

When asked if she was excited, she frowned.

"I'm nervous," she whispered.

But when she finally threw her arms around husband Spc. Allan Marshall, 30, and he scooped up his 4-year-old son Austin, Jessica couldn't stop smiling.

"I'm better," she said with a grin.

Marshall's father, Carson City Sheriff's Sgt. Mark Marshall, a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, was also smiling.

"Now I know what my parents went through," he said, acknowledging the worry that haunts a family when a loved one goes to war.

As much as he worried about his son, he was equally proud of him.

"To me, he's Captain American," said Marshall.

The wait at the airport wasn't that tough for Angela Wood and her sons Gabe, 9, and Michael, 16. She stood with Elijah's mom, Heidi Deal, and the two chatted and laughed in the half hour leading up to the group's arrival.

When that plane landed, however, both women exhaled through pursed lips to try to hold back their tears.

They laughed at each other for crying, but cried just the same.

As the formation of men walked toward the front, Angela scanned the group for her husband, Sgt. Eric Wood.

Capt. Nicholas Moran addressed the crowd before cutting the soldiers loose.

"Each and every one is home safe right now," said Moran. "They met the enemy and they did not shirk. To the peaceful citizens of Afghanistan, they gave security and aid."

Angela eagerly pressed against a rope holding the crowd back. Once Moran was done and the group was released, she grabbed Gabe's hand and called for Michael to follow. She waded through the rejoicing crowd, searching for her husband through whatever openings she could find.

It had been a long deployment, said Angela, but she and Eric had sent many e-mails back and forth during that time. She saved them all and planned to put them into a book for her children.

And she was looking forward to showing Eric the new house they bought while he was gone.

But she had to find him first, and right now it seemed impossible.

Then she saw him and he saw her. Simultaneously, the couple moved into each other's arms.

Angela wept. But this time she wept not for her husband but on him.

"My heart feels whole again," she said.

He was finally home.