National Guard troops welcomed back home in Oakland
OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- There are few things as moving in American life as a homecoming, especially for the men and women of the military, who serve our country in faraway places. Tuesday, a group came back from one of those places.
Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been many kinds of homecomings.
It took just one look outside an Oakland International Airport terminal to see that there was something special happening Tuesday.
The families of 75 soldiers came to the airport to greet the California National Guard's 349th Quartermaster Company.
Fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, friends ND neighbors in one big tangled, crying, screaming, weeping mass . Every soldier who left home last July returned safe and sound.
As long as sons and now daughters have gone off to war, there have been homecomings like the one today. They've been painted, written about, photographed and romanticized. But to fully appreciate a moment like it, one must live it; from both sides.
