Deployed airmen return to cheers, hugs at Yokota

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Tech. Sgt. Joey Johnson hugs his wife, Tabitha, a fourth-grade teacher on Yokota Air Base, after returning to the base Friday from a four-month deployment to the Middle East.


Deployed airmen return to cheers, hugs at Yokota
By Bryce S. Dubee, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, January 27, 2008

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Greeted with cheers, applause and hugs from friends and family, roughly 110 airmen returned from war zones to Yokota during the past week.

With one group arriving on Wednesday and two groups on Friday, the airmen were deployed as part of Air and Space Expeditionary Forces 3-4 and 9-10, serving for approximately 120 days in various parts of the Central Command area of responsibility.

During the past year, 980 airmen from Yokota were deployed, with the majority of them heading to Iraq and Kuwait, explained Capt. Peter Shore, the Installation Deployment Officer for the 374th Logistics Readiness Squadron.

“The squadrons that were most heavily tasked were 374th Logistics Readiness Squadron, Civil Engineering Squadron, Security Forces Squadron, 36th Airlift Squadron and 374th Maintenance Group,” he said in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes.

Sharing a long embrace in the middle of the passenger terminal Friday, Senior Airman Jared Peters and his wife, Courtney, said they were glad to be reunited.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51944