Welcome home: Seymour Johnson AFB airmen have served country well

They got in this afternoon after the time that was reasonable to put their welcome home party on the front page of today’s edition.

So, you will have to wait until tomorrow to see the faces of the men and women who are back home at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base after serving their country in Southwest Asia.

But that doesn’t mean that we are going to wait even a day to say thank you to the returning airmen and their families.

With all the news that is coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes we forget there are some of our own heroes reflected in those stories of courage and selflessness from the battleground.

We forget just how many reasons we have right here in Wayne County to be proud.

Today is our chance to remember.

The men and women returning home today put their own personal safety aside to protect their home nation and to help another build a future.

They have sacrificed time away from their families in service to strangers they might never meet. They have risked their lives in the name of freedom.

Seymour Johnson personnel have been instrumental in some of the most successful operations in the war in Iraq, making a difference in the course of the battles and in the future of the newly liberated nation.

They have made their families and their country proud.

So, today, their adopted hometown joins their families in welcoming them home with grateful hearts and with the acknowledgement of a job well done.

Published in Editorials on May 25, 2006 10:41 AM