Florida National Guard members returning home from Kuwait and Iraq

Florida National Guard members returning home from Kuwait and Iraq
2,500 from 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team due to return home by late December

By Henry Pierson Curtis, Orlando Sentinel
6:48 p.m. EST, November 28, 2010

Arriving before dawn, a contingent of the Florida National Guard's 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team arrived in South Georgia on Sunday after serving much of the year in Kuwait and Iraq.

Returning soldiers called out their hometowns — Orlando, Tampa, Tallahassee — as they walked from a chartered jet at Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah.

Carrying backpacks and rifles, the 150 men and women on the flight were the first of 2,500 members of the unit scheduled to return home by late December, said Lt. Col. Ron Tittle.

"Most were responsible for security operations in Kuwait and escorting convoys into Iraq," said Tittle, who filmed Sunday's return for the National Guard's Facebook page. "The plan is to get them all home before Christmas Eve."

Most of the returning soldiers were heading to military schools after a "Welcome Home" ceremony and five-day demobilization at Fort Stewart in southern Georgia. They were mobilized in January when the unit left Florida for training at Fort Hood in Texas before flying to Kuwait in March, according to the National Guard.

Two members of the unit died during the year.
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Florida National Guard members returning home