Steel behind the rock

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Army Reserve

Article that was on Channel 10

One in every four members of the Army Reserve's 660th Transportation Company have died or been wounded in Iraq this past year. For most of them and their families coming home on Sunday was pure joy.
The members of the of the 660th pulled into Zanesville to a sea of hand-made welcome signs and the loving faces of children, spouses friends and parents.
Janice Cable is just one of many mothers waiting for her son to return.
"I'm just glad their back we have them back they did us proud," she said.
A month ago, Sgt Tony Bender was a lead gunner, escorting fuel tankers though some of Iraq's most dangerous roads, surviving sniper fire and roadside bombs. Sunday, Sgt. Bender saw his baby daughter for the very first time.
"I just want to get home and hang out with all my friends and family," he told us.
Linda Davis drove 400 miles from Michigan to be here. Her husband, Sgt. Donald Davis died last August when his fuel truck crashed on a mission with the 660th in Iraq.
Before Linda's husband left for Iraq last year, he gave her his dog tag with an inscription on it.
"On the back of it says, 'I will be strong and courageous. I will not be terrified or discouraged because the Lord my God is with me wherever I go.' We had six kids and he brought it home to me and told me I was going to need it more than him. Low and behold it was the other way around."
In the auditorium stage where these heroes were welcomed home, something else was revealed about the soldiers of the 660th: their loyalty to the fellow soldiers who watched over them in Iraq. Their loss of the four men from their company who died.
"For every hero who goes off to war," John Taylor, the company's first sergeant said, "there's another's waiting back home...The mothers of the soldiers that have fallen. That their father's not coming back. There's your heroes. You guys are the heroes."
The 660th Transportation Company also held a homecoming Sunday in Cadiz, Ohio.
Eight members of the unit are still recovering from wounds they received in Iraq.
It has been a happy week for many soldiers in Ohio. Every day since Wednesday, there's been a homecoming celebration for a unit based in Ohio, bringing more than 400 soldiers back home to their families.