FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — The scenes of soldiers coming off the airplanes from Iraq and being greeted by their spouses and meeting their newborn babies are the ones often displayed in news photos and on television.
But on each returning flight there are soldiers, mostly single, with no one to greet them, no one waving a banner with their name.
Pfc. Jared Corn and four of his single buddies from the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., took it in stride on one recent day as couples all around them embraced.
"We're the losers with no family," joked Corn, 22.
"It's better to have friends than nobody," said Pvt. Moses Ibanez, 20, who planned to fly to San Diego, Calif., to see his girlfriend and family.
"I love these guys, but we spent a year together," Ibanez said. "Now it's time for my family."
The 20,000 soldiers from the 101st are in the process of returning after nearly a year at war.
Many families, like Ibanez's, can't come to the airfield because the trip is too far. And frequently changing flight times — some planes come hours or days late, others early — make it difficult for loved ones to be on hand to greet arriving soldiers.
To fill the gap, many soldiers who already made it home visit the airfield to welcome the troops, giving their comrades high fives as they walk into the hangar. One soldier who arrived on a 4:25 a.m. flight was back at the airfield around 8 a.m. to greet a friend on the next flight, said John Minton, a public affairs officer.
There are also volunteers who are self-described huggers like T.C. Freeman, president of the Kentucky chapter of the Association of the United States Army.
Freeman, 71, has been to all but one of the 101st flights that has arrived in recent weeks to serve food to the families and to hug the lonely.
"There are guys who don't have anyone to meet them, and they want hugs too," said Freeman, who began volunteering when troops returned from the 1991 Gulf War.
"I'd stick one hand out and they'd stick two," Freeman said.
Chaplain Maj. Steven Tuner, 51, said he and other chaplains seek out soldiers who are by themselves at the homecomings. He said spouses in the division's family readiness groups also make a point to decorate the barracks rooms of single soldiers, so they feel welcomed home.
But Pfc. Derek Reeves, 20, standing with no family in the hangar, said: "I'm ready for this to hurry up and get over with."
He said it was time "to go do what 20-year-olds do."