Photo By Jane Welch | Spc. Allen Barnes, a motor transport operator with the 778th Transportation Company...... read more read more
SALINA, Kan. - Soldiers of the 778th Transportation Company (Heavy Equipment Transport) were welcomed home Oct. 23, after a 12-month deployment overseas.
Approximately 240 Kansas National Guard soldiers of the 778th Tran. Company (HET) marched into the Bicentennial Center in Salina, Kan., where friends, family and co-workers anxiously awaited their return.
Maj. Gen. (KS) Lee Tafanelli, the adjutant general, and Lt. Gov. of Kansas Dr. Jeffery Colyer, acknowledged the deployed soldiers, family members and community with words of appreciation for their service and sacrifice.
"Welcome home 778, welcome home," said Colyer, “General Tafanelli, General Peck, commander, Specialist Baby-cakes, all soldiers here today, we are so proud of you and your service to the United State of America. Thank you so much from all Kansans.”
“To your families, let me say thank you for your service, sacrifice and support of your soldiers this past year,” said Tafanelli. “It has truly meant a lot. It’s made the difference in their ability to get through mission accomplished. But it’s not over yet… last but not least let me say ‘Job well done 778, mission complete.’”
Following the chaplain's closing prayer, family members scrambled from the bleachers to meet their loved ones outside.
Star-spangled welcome signs and waving flags quickly gave way to a frenzy of hugs and kisses.
“I am ecstatic to be home and with family,” shared Staff Sgt. Joseph Duncan, a multichannel transmission systems operator - maintainer with the 778th Tran. Company (HET).
“I am glad that all the time I have been gone has come to this reward.”
The unit served a year in Kuwait and Iraq supporting operations New Dawn and Enduring Freedom.
Soldiers of the 778th Tran. Company (HET) served as a forward deployed Heavy Equipment Transportation Company of a Transportation Battalion, providing responsive, tailored, adaptive HET capabilities for staging, onward movement, integration, retrograde, and sustainment operations in support of Operations New Dawn and Enduring Freedom.
The 778th Transportation Company (HET) is headquartered in Kansas City, Kan., and augmented by soldiers from the 731st Transportation Company (Medium Truck) and the 137th Transportation Company (Palletized Loading System). All three units are part of the Kansas National Guard’s 287th Sustainment Brigade.
| Date Taken: | 10.23.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 11.21.2011 13:30 |
| Story ID: | 80335 |
| Location: | SALINA, KANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 579 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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