Troop homecoming: A surge of emotions

"FORT BRAGG (WTVD) -- About 350 members of the 82nd Airborne Division are returning home to their families. The members of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment have spent the past 15 months fighting in Baghdad.Families waited for their loved ones to return from combat at Fort Bragg Wednesday morning."

Blue Star Moms from NC were on hand to welcome them home.

"They have been in the country since January 2007. Their return marks an end to the surge that has been credited with reducing violence in many parts of Iraq, especially around Sadr City.
Col. Stephen R. Lyons, the acting commander of the 82nd, told the paratroopers that what they did will some day appear in history books. The 2nd Brigade controlled several neighborhoods in the western part of the capital along the Tigris River.
The area includes parts of the city run by the Mahdi Army, the militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that has been blamed for much of the Shiite-on-Sunni violence in Baghdad.
“You took the toughest section of Baghdad and turned it around,” Lyons said."

More...From a Canadian Cadet to an American Soldier: