“For weeks my parents have been asking, ‘What do you want for Christmas?’ And I kept saying each and every single time, ‘I want to see my brother,'” Mark said. “Until a day ago they said, ‘So you are sticking to your word?’ And I said ‘Yes.’ And today he’s here.”
Army Sgt. 1st Class Brian Sharp and his fellow Green Berets were ambushed during a mission in Afghanistan. Sharp was shot multiple times and almost died.KOOTENAI COUNTY, Idaho — Dozens of community members are lined up to give a hero's welcome on Friday to a veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan this year.
“I can’t even tell you how wonderful it was to be able to hug him,” the older Walker said. “They were so mistreated when they came home, and to have them now, watch all these people who are thanking their veterans, it’s really amazing.”
"Combat should never be easier than coming home to you!" Kathie Costos
The battle to save the lives of combat veterans is not lost and it is not new. 18 veterans and more than one active duty service member take their own lives each day. More attempt it. Kathie Costos is not just a Chaplain helping veterans and their families, not just a researcher, she lives with it everyday. Combat came home with her Vietnam veteran husband and they have been married for 28 years.She remembers what it was like to feel lost and alone.Everything you read in the news today about PTSD is in this book originally published in 2002 to serve as a guide to healing as well as a warning of what was coming for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.read more here
In “The Lost Homecoming,” about 45 Vietnam War veterans, many of them from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, talk about their experiences both in country and when they returned to the States. Dawley, who lives in Diamondhead, produced and codirected the one-hour program, and Lenny Delbert of New Orleans is co-director and the filmmaker.
‘The Lost Homecoming: When Our Vietnam Veterans Came Home’ will air on WYES on Sunday night at 10 p.m. Courtesy WYES/Pan Am Communications
“They were fighting in something the public didn’t support, and so they really felt defeated,” Dawley said.
The story that stayed with him was that of a young African American man from a small Mississippi town.
“His best friend in Vietnam was a young white man, and he was killed right beside him,” Dawley said. “The thing that carried him through his time in service was the thought of his homecoming. He made sergeant. When he was headed home, he was looking outside the window of the bus and thinking about what people would say.”
When the bus stopped in his hometown, the white man who owned the service station there looked at him, finally recognized him and said, “Well, boy, I see you made it back OK.”
“He didn’t know that was going to be all the homecoming he was going to get,” Dawley said. The rejection the young man felt affected several aspects of his life. He became a drug addict, and his marriage fell apart.read more here
The "Vietnam Veterans Service Day and Welcome Home Ceremony" at Brevard Veterans Memorial Center in Merritt Island drew more than 100 cadets from eight Brevard schools, dozens of friends and family members and more than 120 Vietnam veterans for a morning of respect and gratitude.
"Welcome Home Baby Daddy."
"Not only did they reserve us a table, they closed all the blinds so Daddy couldn't see if we happen to walk by the wrong window, the manager recorded to homecoming on his personal phone for us," Adams wrote on Facebook.
"None of us really knew what war was about, so as I lost individuals it became a battle for me on the inside. I went there as a Christian and came back as someone who didn't really believe in the almighty. You take me to battle and you take all of my friends... and you send me back here to an empty world what am I supposed to do?" said Owens.However God kept calling and as more veterans needed help, Owens found a new front line, his faith. Owens says Thursday's ceremony will give veterans the opportunity to feel welcomed when they didn't decades ago.
A Soldier returned home to an emotional reunion after nearly a year in Afghanistan (Courtesy: Gerald R. Ford International Airport)GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — For those who just can't get enough of those happy, emotional military homecomings, there was a special reunion in Michigan Tuesday afternoon.
SENECA, S.C. —Hundreds of people from Easley to Seneca lined the streets to welcome U.S. Marines from Camp LeJeune who are visiting the Upstate this week.30 Marines, 10 more who were discharged staying at Keowee Key
“It’s just a great feeling now after 45 years to actually have somebody come up and say, ‘thank you,’ and shake your hand,” Charlie Bryson, a Vietnam Veteran, said.
Michelle Rivera kisses her husband SPC Osvaldo Rivera Jr. as he arrives from Afghanistan along with 200 other soldiers at Daytona Beach International Airport on Thursday.DAYTONA BEACH – Nearly 200 local troops deployed to Afghanistan were welcomed home to Volusia County on Thursday with banners, lingering hugs and tears of joy and gratitude.
News-Journal/LOLA GOMEZ
“This is not where you expect to be. I didn’t expect at 50 years old to be waiting for my husband to return from war.”
Mary Graff
A soldier poses with his family after returning from a six-month deployment to Afghanistan. Thom Bridge, Independent RecordA six-month wait came to an end Friday for the families of six Montana Army National Guard soldiers.
