JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARBULLETIN.COM Families and friends welcomed 143 Kaneohe Marines back to Marine Corps Base at Kaneohe yesterday after a seven-month deployment in Iraq. Cpl. Sam Mora greeted his wife, Giselle, and their daughter Sophia, 2.

Heroes’ Homecoming

Family members greet
a large contingent whose duty
included the fight for Fallujah

One hundred forty-three Kaneohe Marines returned home after seven months in Iraq where they participated in some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Families and friends welcomed the Marines home to Kaneohe yesterday morning with paper leis made by schoolchildren on base, warm smiles, well-wishes, strong embraces and tears.

"These are the real, live heroes of the battle for Fallujah," said Capt. Christopher Perrine, public affairs officer at Kaneohe Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

"Knowing what these guys went through and seeing them come home safely makes me feel a lot of emotions at once," Perrine said. "It makes you feel proud, choked up, sad for their buddies who didn't make it home and the families grieving their loved-ones; but very happy for a little kid, and wives and mothers who got to see their loved ones come back."

Nearly 900 members of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, and 3rd Radio Battalion left Kaneohe Bay in July for what was supposed to be a routine seven-month deployment in Okinawa. Instead, in August, they were reassigned to fight in Iraq as part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.

In November and December, they reclaimed the city of Fallujah from insurgents in some of the toughest fighting of the war. After January's elections, the Marines returned to Okinawa and have been coming back to Hawaii in small and large groups.

Yesterday's was the largest single group of Marines to return.

"I think it's too soon to talk about how I feel," said Lance Cpl. Jerome Wently, who said he might return to the Middle East to work in private security after he completes his tour of duty with the Marines. "But, I do know those people needed help; and being over there helped me realize that. I'm just glad that I could help."

Cpl. Samuel Mora said he was "ecstatic" as he held his 2-year-old daughter in his arms. "I'm trying to hold it in, but I want to jump and shout and scream like a little kid."

"It's been so long," said Nanakuli native Brooke Peterson, as she and her 2-year-old daughter anxiously awaited the return of her husband, Sgt. Travis Peterson. "I'm excited, especially for Braylin. She's not quite old enough to realize he's not here all the time, but she always asks about him when she sees him in the pictures. How's she going to react?"

Peterson said it was hard to see her husband leave for war. "But my husband is proud of what he does and I'm proud to support him."

As joyous as today's homecoming was, it was tempered somewhat by those who didn't return.

The Web site for the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, lists the names of 46 Marines and a Pearl Harbor Navy corpsman attached to the unit who aren't returning home. The list includes 26 Marines and the sailor who died in a helicopter crash in January, the deadliest single incident for American forces since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. More than 250 Marines from the unit were wounded or injured since the war began, Perrine said.