SEYMOUR JOHNSON AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. (WNCT) – Was it a Christmas miracle or maybe a child's request to Santa Claus that brought a group of combat pilots home from Afghanistan in time for Christmas?
Families of nearly 100 airmen welcomed them home at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro Tuesday.
The combat pilots and crews came home two months earlier than scheduled.
"When he left we didn't know he'd been coming home early. We're super excited to spend the holidays together all four of us at home,” said Andrea Troyer. She and her children waited patiently with dozens of other families from the 326th Fighter Squadron. "You get a phone call that they're out of Afghanistan and you breathe a sigh of relief. You get a call that they're out of the region all together and you just feel your body just relax, you've been holding your breath for so long, and you didn't realize.”
This isn't the first deployment she's been through, but it is the first with children.
"It's been really hard," said Troyer.
Then came the ten minute warning the families were waiting for. Out on the flightline, they waited some more as the jets filed in, one by one.
Close to 150 members of the 335th and 336th fighter squadrons were deployed. About 70 came home today. Another 50 or so should be home tomorrow.
While the men and women are glad to be home, a part of them is still with those who are not home.
From Seymour Johnson Air Force Base alone there are 700 troops still deployed to ten countries overseas.
Families at Fort Bragg welcomed hundreds of paratroopers home today as well.
Around 200 soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team spent seven months deployed in Iraq.
The Falcon Brigade is officially the last brigade to come home from Baghdad.
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