FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — About 275 soldiers returned from Afghanistan to cheering and crying family members Friday after their division suffered one of its deadliest years in decades.
Hundreds marked the soldiers’ return during a celebration in a plane hangar at Fort Campbell filled with homemade signs, balloons and music. The homecoming was especially poignant because the 101st Airborne Division lost 105 soldiers in 2010, accounting for about 1 in 5 American deaths in Afghanistan.
The losses equal the death toll of its 2005-06 Iraq deployment, tying for most divisional deaths in a year since Vietnam.
Maj. Gen. Frank Wiercinski, senior commander at Fort Campbell during the deployment, said the arrival of troops from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team marks the beginning of the return of about 17,000 of the division’s soldiers from Afghanistan.
Many families suffered through an agonizing year of monitoring reports of heavy casualties.
“I got up every morning, and I checked my iPhone for news about Afghanistan,” said Peggy Gallaher. Her son, Sgt. Carson Gallaher, was among the first to return. The Associated Press
