Homecoming

Families rejoice as 250 Marines and sailors return from duty in Iraq

Marine Cpl. Terron Skipper embraced his wife, Bobi, and then beheld his 2-month-old son for the first time.

"My son was born two months ago," he said in the hangar at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, where a crowd welcomed back 250 Marines yesterday. "I'm just really excited to get here and see him for the first time."

Skipper held son Logan delicately and kept petting his head. "I was just overjoyed," he said after his seven-month deployment to Iraq. "I'm really excited to start helping my wife out. I'm really proud of her."

A commercial jet carrying some 250 Marines and sailors with the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, touched down yesterday in Kaneohe. The Marines and sailors were greeted with hugs, kisses and tears.

It was a joyful homecoming -- with the returning group bringing the total to 600 Marines and sailors back in Kaneohe from a seven-month deployment to Fallujah. The last of the 850 Marines in the battalion were expected to return today, officials said.

Kim Miller, 20, fought back nausea from worrying as she awaited her husband's plane. A group of military spouses surrounded her in support.

"I'm really going to be sick," Miller said. "I'm just emotionally drained right now. I'm scared, excited and nervous."

Adorned in a black dress with red dots, she recalled how she met her husband, Lance Cpl. Ron Miller, 20, during a blind date. They married last July, a month before the battalion left. She fretted yesterday like it was their first date all over again.

"I have changed a little bit," she said. "Oh, my dear God. Oh, my God."

The battalion's officers said the area in Iraq that they turned over this month to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, also out of Kaneohe, showed much improvement.

Lt. Col. Nathan Nastase, 3rd Battalion commander, said security is better, children are returning to school and economic development is blooming.

"This was a particularly dynamic seven months," said Nastase, who completed his fourth deployment to Iraq. "We sort of fell in on a real upswell of locals standing up to securing their own homes -- the awakening."

Sgt. Jonathan Sidhu agreed. The battalion helped build mosques and three primary schools, he added.

"We did a lot of good stuff over there. It really gave me a lot of hope," he said. "They (the Iraqis) were doing it for themselves. We helped with anything we could."

Sidhu propped his 6-month-old son, whom he met during emergency leave last year, on his knee and sat next to his 2-year-old son.

Across from him, his wife, Kelly, said the deployment had been stressful.

"It's good to know we're finally done with it," she said. "We can breathe."