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thedrifter
08-25-08, 09:50 AM
August 25, 2008
Anxious loved ones welcome Marines back to Des Moines

By MOLLY HOTTLE
mhottle@dmreg.com

For Jessica Williams, nearly a year of waiting had come down to this moment.

She fidgeted as she watched the nearly 150 Iowa-based Marine reservists climb out of buses at the final stop on their road back from a seven-month tour in Iraq, Cpl. Jason Williams, her husband of one year, among them.

"I can't wait to touch his face," she said as she looked for him despite the lack of light in the parking lot of the Navy and Marine Corps Center at Fort Des Moines, where family and friends were able to reunite with the reservists. "I'm just going to make a beeline for him."

The Marines are members of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, of Fort Des Moines, which included Marine infantrymen and a handful of sailors who were deployed as Navy medical corpsmen. The group is composed of people from Iowa and surrounding Midwest states.

None of them were killed or wounded during the tour.

Jessica, 20, and Jason Williams, 23, who is originally from Des Moines, met while they both worked at the Godfather's Pizza in Altoona, Williams' hometown. They began dating in 2003, and Jason Williams enlisted not long after.

The two were married in August 2007, and one month later, he left for active duty.

"We've lived on 10-minute phone calls," said Jessica Williams. "You just have to do what you have to do. It takes a certain kind of woman to do, but that's what I signed up for."

The couple plans to move to Elkhorn, Neb., where Jessica Williams will attend the University of Nebraska-Omaha and they will finally start their first year of marriage together.

"Were just going to take the plunge and try to make a life of our own and try to have our first year of marriage," she said. "It's definitely time."

Not far away, Lisa Rose of Springville waited with an American flag in hand for her son, Cpl. Brian Rose, 22, to return.

"He used to play army when he was a little boy," Lisa Rose said. "There are highs and lows. Sometimes it's nerve-wracking, and sometimes you have peace that he's doing what he was trained to do."

Today, Brian Rose will return to the University of Northern Iowa to pick up where he left off last September.

As the convoy of police cars and motorcycles escorted the charter buses of Marines, Lisa Rose wiped the tears from her eyes.

"I think they're coming," she said.

Jessica Williams jumped up and down, waving a sign that read "My husband is finally home."

And at the command of "dismissed," Lisa Rose and Jessica Williams and hundreds of others cheered, applauded and rushed to find their loved ones.

"I love you," Jessica Williams whispered to her husband as they held each other for the first time since last September.

"I'm just glad it's my last time," Jason Williams said.

"I'm definitely excited about that," she added.

Lisa Rose cried as she held her son.

"It's obviously great because I haven't seen anyone in seven months," said Brian Rose about reuniting with his family. "I'm kind of hungry."

The next stop in his journey home: find a restaurant open late en route to his family's home in Springville.

Ellie