Crowd welcomes injured Marine back to Peabody

October 19, 2011
Home is where the hero is
Crowd welcomes injured Marine back to Peabody

By Alan Burke
Staff Writer

PEABODY — It's not easy to stun a Marine.

But Lance Cpl. P.J. Campbell, 21, was stunned last night as he returned to his Peabody home after months of recovering from a devastating bomb attack in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. Roughly 100 people cheered his arrival, including kids from Brown School, veterans, neighbors, city officials and friends.

Campbell was at the end of a long journey, having been driven home from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., by his mother, Joanne, and escorted across Connecticut and Massachusetts by relays of state police.

He wore a wide smile of surprise as his mom pulled up to their Bartholomew Street home, escorted the last leg by two Peabody police cruisers and two fire vehicles, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Another fire engine sat across from the family driveway, lighting the scene.

"What is going on?" Campbell said when asked his reaction to the reception. With a huge grin, he leaped from the vehicle and embraced first his brother Michael and then his father, Paul.
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