ALEXANDRIA, La. &045; The caravan of cars and vans was easy to spot traveling along Louisiana 167.

Flags were flying from every window, along with red, white and blue signs that read &uot;Welcome Home, Michael&uot; and &uot;Welcome Home, Thomas,&uot; among others.

Inside each vehicle were men and women on a mission &045; to welcome their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, parents and nephews home with all the enthusiasm and love they could muster.

On Wednesday morning, they were headed to the former England Air Force Base, now the Alexandria Airport, to welcome the 60-plus members of the 1086th Transportation Company home.

Early morning surprise

In the pre-dawn hours on Wednesday, members of the 1086th landed in Maine after a nine-hour trip from Iraq. Their journey took them on stops through Italy and Ireland en route to their long-awaited homecoming.

Upon landing in Maine, a phalanx of veterans they had never met before greeted them in the pre-dawn hours bearing homemade cookies &045; and cell phones from which to make calls home.

&uot;They said, ‘Call anyone you want,’&uot; a soldier would recall later.

The soldiers then woke their families back home in Vidalia and Ferriday, Bunkie and Ville Platte with the message they had waited for quite a while &045; they were on the last leg of the journey home.

&uot;He sounded excited Š good Š ready to come home,&uot; said Linda Tarver, smiling and fidgeting slightly with nervous energy as she recounted the call from her son, Thomas.

Joyous journey

In the hours following the sleepy round of telephone calls, family members kicked into high-gear preparation.

Relatives of the soldiers would bundle their children up against the cold and, bringing along homemade banners and poster board signs, make the rounds to pick family and friends up by 7 a.m. to be at the base by 10:20 a.m., when the jet bearing the soldiers was set to arrive. Separated from the runway by a fence, family members waved and cheered as their loved ones disembarked the jet.

Troops were whisked away for a debriefing before the official family homecoming could begin at 1:30 p.m.

The returning soldiers were officially welcomed home by members of their 61st Troop Command and Maj. Gen. Bennett Landreneau of the National Guard himself.

Long wait

With the lunch hour approaching, the families thought they might get a bite to eat before greeting the troops in person &045; but they never got the chance.

Once members of the 1086th made the trip to the gym at Fort Polk, the official meeting places, they received word that instead of waiting until 1:30 p.m., the troops would be arriving in a matter of minutes.

After greeting their relatives, they were told, the soldiers would get a 24-hour pass to leave and spend time with family, as long as they stayed within a 50-mile radius of Fort Polk.

The wait was still too long for most of those bearing balloons and bouquets, cameras and camcorders, banners and babies.

&uot;I have prayed and prayed for today,&uot; said Mary Ardoin, mother of Sgt. Damon Thomas of Ville Platte. She was worried for months about her son, &uot;but he always seemed more concerned about his troops than he was about himself. But now they’re all coming home.&uot;

Next to her, Thomas’ wife, Tracy, and 6-year-old son, Vontrevious, sat with anxious smiles on their faces, looking at the far corner where his daddy would appear.

&uot;It’s sending chills up my body,&uot; said Esther Smith, wife of soldier Tim Smith of Bunkie. &uot;It was good to hear his voice at 4 a.m. this morning, but I’m ready for the real thing. After all these months, Š it’ll be good to have him home.&uot;

Kristen Johnson of Ferriday also watched along with her daughter and son, waiting for her father and their &uot;Papaw,&uot; Ferris Durham of Ridgecrest, to walk through that door.

&uot;She’s so excited,&uot; Johnson said. She explained that her daughter has been studying Durham’s picture for months to remember exactly what he looks like.

For many of the families, telephone calls from afar were the only thing that kept them in touch.

&uot;He called twice a week &045; every chance he got,&uot; Maxine Duncan of Ferriday said of her son, 37-year-old Francis.

Meanwhile his father, Antoine Duncan, kept watching the news for clues of the company’s welfare.

&uot;It’s a relief to have him home,&uot; he said, his eyes squinting toward the runway where the plane would land. &uot;I wouldn’t have any peace until he got home safely.&uot;