Piqua – First Sgt. John “Jay” Klies traded in the red cap of the soldiers for a Santa Claus hat Tuesday, December 9, and 70 other members of the Piqua-based Ohio National Guard unit returned home after almost a year in Kuwait.
Klies’ son, Zac, 14, and daughter, Kaitlin, 9, wore Santa hats match with his wife, Casey, who has a family of a child, Cooper, 2, in weapons.
«I am happy,” Kaitlin, New Concord, said the father at home is 16 days before Christmas. «When the first left, I cried all day.”
Major Gen. Gregory Wayt, Ohio staff, said that hundreds of collections Welcome home ceremony Piqua High School gym in the belief that “the magic of Christmas” has contributed to the members of Battery B, 1-134th Field Artillery Regiment home for the holidays .
The unit left Jan. 4 to provide basic security in Kuwait. The application was the largest unit call-up of National Guard soldiers from the Second World War. More than 2,500 soldiers – about 1600 from Ohio and 950 Michigan that includes the 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team – developed.
HORO Tuesday was also a meeting between the device and fellow soldier, Sgt. Via Giacomo Trojan. Via while he was at home on leave in August, doctors at Wright-Patterson Medical Center have discovered a cancerous tumor on his knees with his daughter, Jael, 12 The prognosis is good for recovery.
Tuesday Via, 41, welcomed the return of soldiers and the Bravo Battery commander Capt. Patrick Rippeth, praised the family of faith and strength.
“I really lost them,” Street said of the soldiers, “I knew it, but my position was to be here.”
