TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
Face to face at last: Elizabeth Fahy, 19, and her boyfriend, Sgt. Elwood Humphries, 22, reunite at Fort Dix; friend Kim Davis looks on. Humphries and his 50th Brigade comrades are New Jersey's first large National Guard contingent to return.
- 'It's good coming home'
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'It's good coming home'
400 soldiers back from Iraq receive an emotional welcome at Fort Dix.
For nearly a year while her boyfriend served in Iraq, 19-year-old Elizabeth Fahy made do with Internet communications and phone calls to him.
Yesterday, her soldier's plane touched down at McGuire Air Force Base, and buses were bringing him and nearly 400 other members of New Jersey's 50th Infantry Brigade Combat Team to Fort Dix.
Fahy stood with hundreds of people - spouses, children, and other family members and friends - all anxiously awaiting the troops' arrival. Many held babies, balloons, flags, and "Welcome Home" signs.
"I'm nervous, excited, and happy," said Fahy of Blackwood. "I imagined this moment, but it wasn't like this!"
The emotional homecoming - on a Memorial Day remembering service members who didn't make it home - came about 3 p.m. as the National Guard members marched onto a parking lot in neat military formations that quickly dissolved into hugs, kisses, tears, and squeals of joy.
Fahy's eyes scanned the crowd for 22-year-old Spec. Elwood Humphries of Blackwood.
"I'm going to have a heart attack," she told two girlfriends. "I'm shaking."
Then, Fahy bumped into Humphries. She screamed and kissed him as he lifted her in his arms.
"I didn't think there would be this many people. This is surprising," Humphries said. "It's good coming home - a lot more relaxing than leaving."
Humphries and the rest of his 50th Brigade comrades were part of the largest deployment of the state's National Guard since World War II and are the first large contingent to return.
About 2,800 citizen-soldiers from across the region have guarded insurgents in detention facilities, provided convoy security, and helped guide Iraq's transition from occupied country to fledgling republic. They served in Basra, Bucca, and Baghdad.
Some brigade members transferred control of Baghdad's former Green Zone, once the seat of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and home to one of his palaces, to the government in January.
The troops arriving yesterday belong to units across New Jersey, including about 130 in the 114th Infantry Battalion, Delta Company, from Woodstown, Salem County; 130 in the 154th Quartermaster Company, from Sea Girt, Monmouth County; and 130 in the 250th Brigade Support Battalion, Delta Company, from West Orange, Essex County.
"Now, I want to get back to a normal life," said Army Spec. Marcus Wild, 22, of Mount Ephraim, after being welcomed home by his fiancee. "This has been a life-changing experience - in good ways. You learn to appreciate things a lot more."
As he spoke, Wild's mother, Patricia Wild, saw her son and rushed to embrace him with tears welling in her eyes.
"I'm overwhelmed," said the 49-year-old Mount Ephraim woman. "I'm proud of him. He did a great job and now he's home."
Over the last year, many of the spouses cared for homes and children, paid bills, and went to PTA meetings by themselves as they worried about their soldiers on the other side of the world. Those pent-up emotions came out in torrents yesterday.
Pushing a stroller with her 7-month-old daughter, Riley, Rachel Monaghan, 24, was shaking as the troops began marching from a nearby building, where they had turned in their weapons, to another where their loved ones gathered.
"I'm so excited," the Laurel Springs woman said. "I'm anxious. I've been thinking about this day. It's been very tough" while he has been away.
After the couple were reunited, Sgt. Dan Monaghan, 25, could not seem to take his eyes off his daughter.
