'Thank you for being our heroes ... and welcome home'

Hundreds of Minnesota National Guard soldiers reunited for the official ceremony. Two months after returning from Iraq, several hundred Minnesota National Guard soldiers were redeployed Saturday in downtown Minneapolis, where they took over the Convention Center and officially received the grateful thanks of their state and country.

"Thank you for being our heroes. Thank you for exhibiting values and courage and duty and honor ..." Gov. Tim Pawlenty said in a welcome home ceremony that included members of Congress and National Guard brass.

"We believe in you, we want to support you in every way that we can, and welcome home."

It was the first reunion of soldiers from Task Force 34 that included members of the 34th Combat Aviation Brigade and the 834th Aviation Support Battalion, both based in St. Paul, and F Company of the 1st Battalion, 189th Regiment Air Traffic Services, based in Camp Ripley.

The soldiers returned to Minnesota in late May at the end of a year-long deployment.

The occasion Saturday was the "Beyond the Yellow Ribbon" program, which is designed to help smooth the transition from warrior to citizen. The program, begun by the Minnesota Guard in 2005 at the urging of Maj. Gen. Larry Shellito, the Guard's adjutant general, has become a national model for similar programs in other states.

The Minnesota soldiers, all of them in fatigues and many clutching the hands of spouses or children, spent much of the day attending workshops on adjusting to civilian life.

"Everyone's going to have challenges of one kind or another," said Lt. Col Barb O'Reilly, who heads the "Yellow Ribbon" program. "Some will hit a speed bump, some will have a hurdle and then some will hit the wall."

The task force was stationed for 10 months at Balad Air Base in Iraq, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. The mission was to transport troops and supplies in Blackhawk, Chinook and Apache helicopters, do reconnaissance and evacuate the wounded.

In all, the task force flew more than 40,000 hours at all hours of the day, moving tens of thousands of troops and officials and transporting more than 11 million pounds of cargo, said Col. Clay Brock, the commanding officer.

For the soldiers, O'Reilly said, Saturday's exercise was "a recognition that what you did was valuable, and it's thanking family members for what they did" to make their service possible.