Sergeant Matthew Muse embraces his wife Tiffany in Caro Gym after being separated from her for nearly a year while he and his fellow Soldiers supported coalition forces in Iraq. (Georgia National Guard photo by Sgt. Roy Henry)

Despite delays caused by bad weather and aircraft maintenance problems, 30 members of Georgia’s Company H, 171st Aviation arrived late Tuesday evening to a rousing hero’s welcome by family members at Fort Stewart’s Caro Gym.

It was December, 2003, when the unit, whose pilots and aircrews are from Georgia, Florida, Kentucky and Texas, were mobilized for the War on Terror. In March 2004, the Army Airmen headed to Iraq where they and their C-23 Sherpa fixed-wing aircraft spent nearly a year ferrying troops and supplies across the skies of that war-torn country.  

“It seemed as if the ‘powers to be’ were throwing as many obstacles in the way of our getting home as they could find,” said Staff Sgt. Jeff Trigg, a flight engineer from Cleveland, as he held his 7-year-old daughter Alexi close after Tuesday’s ceremony. “Still, I think we all knew that eventually we’d be in the arms of the ones we’ve been missing for so long, and that’s all that mattered.”

Company H’s ordeal began when the Air Force C-5 Galaxy on which it was riding was diverted to Charleston because of bad weather. Originally, the aircraft was to touch down at Savannah’s Hunter Army Airfield around 9 a.m. However, heavy fog in Savannah and the surrounded area made visibility bad, and the situation didn’t change until early after.

The fog eventually lifted, but that didn’t get the group of Army Aviators and aircrews any closer to the homecoming with their families. At some point in the process of getting to Hunter Airfield the aircraft suffered mechanical difficulties and its takeoff was delayed, said Col. Dannis Livingston who commands Georgia Army National Guard Aviation.

“Apparently problems occurred with the aircraft’s electrical generator, which caused the aircrew to decide that the safest thing to do was stay on the ground and get the problems fixed,” Livingston said.

Back at Fort Stewart’s Caro Gym, families waited patiently throughout the day and into the night for their Soldiers to arrive. Anxious, but understanding of the need to put safety first, wives like Tiffany Muse of Kennesaw said the waiting did put a bit of a strain on them. Many of them, she explained had been at the gym all day hoping to look out the door and see the buses carrying their husbands pull up.

“We’d all expected to have them with us earlier in the day, but we’re also Army wives and we know things happen that are beyond anyone’s control,” Muse said shortly before the buses carrying her husband aviation life support specialist Sgt. Matthew Muse and his fellow flyers pulled up outside Caro.

For the Muses it would be an exceptionally happy homecoming because the sergeant, it seems, didn’t know his wife would be there to welcome him. Muse said she had told him she would see him the day he was ready to come home because she had no one to watch their two children. When he realized his wife was out in the crowd, it really made his day, Muse added.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said with a great smile between the hugs and kisses. “I was totally, totally surprised.”

It was around 7:45 p.m. when the C-5 carrying Company H finally made it to Hunter, and it was 9 p.m. before the buses that brought the Soldiers to Fort Stewart pulled up outside the gym.

When the group entered the gym, the shouts, cheers and cries of “welcome home, we love you” could probably be for blocks around. There may have been only 30 families, but there definitely was no shortage of lungpower for the occassion, said Karen Bergfield of Davenport, Fla. Her husband is Florida Army National Guard Sgt. Gene Bergfield, a flight engineer with 171st Aviation at Brooksville, Fla.

After a short welcome back by Livingston and Lt. Col. Michael Hogan, Fort Stewart’s deputy garrison commander for mobilization and reserve affairs, families rushed the gym floor in search of their Soldiers. 

“I’m tickled to death that he’s back, that they’re all back,” said Mary Trigg after she and Alexi stopped embracing Trigg’s husband. “It’s like Christmas only a whole lot better.”

Alexi, who clung to her dad’s neck, simply smiled and said, “I missed him so much.

In the end, the Soldiers and families of Company H had to wait, at least, five more days, to be together, while the unit moved from active duty status back to its status as a National Guard unit. And yet, said Dena Walker of Brooksville, Fla., and the wife of Florida Army Guard Staff Sgt. John Walker, that time would go by swiftly.

After all, she explained, she and all the other families had waited and prayed for a year for their Soldiers to come home. Waiting five more days, she said, doesn’t matter “now that the guys are back on home ground.”