New Hampshire welcomes home Charlie Company

  Yesterday New Hampshire welcomed home 46 members of Charlie Company,  third unit of the 172nd/Infantry (Mountain) Division, after a year long tour of duty in Afghanistan. What an emotional homecoming this must have been as our heroes were reunited with their families after such a long time away in service of our country.

 It is times like this that make me realize that while our soldiers are heroes, we often forget about the unsung heroes–the families which our soldiers leave behind, they are heroes also. They sacrifice as much as those who are deployed as they are left alone to raise their children and make a living while their minds must always be elsewhere; how these military families are able to function on a daily basis while their loved ones are in harm’s way is beyond me. 

  We owe a debt of gratitude to all of those who have chosen to defend our country, as well as their loved ones who live with an anxiousness and nervousness on a daily basis that we can never truly understand.

  I thank you all for everything that you do for this country!  Welcome home Charlie Company, you have made New Hampshire proud and you have made America proud. Congratulations on a job well done!

Below is the Union Leader article about this homecoming, reprinted in full.

THE SIGN FOR Spc. Brandon D. Smart read: “A piece of my heart is back from Afghanistan.”

Hugging his two sons to him — 4-year-old Jason and 2-year-old Landon — the Stratham dad and National Guardsman joined in the joyous reunion at the Manchester Armory shared by 45 other members of Charlie Company, third unit of the 172nd/Infantry (Mountain) Division. The soldiers returned Thursday after a year-long deployment.

“It’s emotional,” Smart said. “No words could capture how I’m feeling right now.”

The New Hampshire group was attached to a Vermont battalion overseas and saw some action while stationed there, according to Spc. Courtney Selig, a member of the 114th Public Affairs Division.

“Their job was interacting with civilians, building partnerships — though they were outside the ‘safe zone’ more than in it, and engaging the enemy if they needed to,” Selig said.

Nancy Glidden of Londonderry said she “felt like a kid” waiting to see her husband, Spc. Dustin Glidden.

“It’s stressful, not having him here,” she said. “But I would call him (on the cell phone) and we’d keep in touch on Facebook.”

Julie Rogers of Barrington was all smiles waiting for her husband, Sgt. Dustin Roberts. She said they were able to talk on the cell phone, but the service was not as dependable as it had been on a previous deployment in Iraq.

The roughest part for her?

“Just raising four kids on my own,” she said and laughed. She said her youngest daughter was about to celebrate her 1st birthday.

Her oldest child was not in the Armory. “She doesn’t know he’s coming. We’re going to pick her up after school and surprise her,” Rogers said.

Meanwhile, Dustin’s mother, Deb Budney of Peterborough, confessed to being more than a little tense.

“You keep a lot inside,” she said. “You’ve got to be a rock for them (his wife and children). He has a sister, too, and you keep everything inside as a mom.”

She added: “I just want to see him, make sure all his fingers and toes are there . . . like when he was born.

“The first time he was deployed, a colonel said to me, ‘Thank you very much for your son.’ And I said, ‘He’s only on loan. Just bring him back in the same condition you got him.’ “

And here are a few pictures: