Front and center was a celebration of life, two separate homecomings in one day for two groups of Utah National Guard units gone the past year.
In the shadows, amid flag-waving children and spouses holding colorful signs, were thoughts of how each group had suffered losses.
About 100 soldiers with 1st Corps Artillery arrived in Salt Lake City Thursday after spending a year in Afghanistan. Last November, I Corps lost 2nd Lt. Scott Lundell, 35, of West Valley City, in a firefight. He was its only casualty since the group deployed a year ago.
An hour after the cheers faded for I Corps, 39 soldiers belonging to 2nd Battalion, 211th Aviation, arrived on a KC-135 refueling tanker at the Guard's air base, now home following a one-year deployment in Iraq.
But only four days ago their group lost Apache helicopter pilots James Linder and Clayton Barnes, members of 1st Battalion, 211th Aviation. They were killed while on a training mission west of Utah Lake when their helicopter crashed. Both pilots had served in Afghanistan in 2004-05.
"It makes for a real somber homecoming," said Chief Warrant Officer Ken Hess, a Blackhawk chopper pilot who exchanged a long hug with his brother, Corey Hess.
On Wednesday a Blackhawk went down in Iraq, killing 14 U.S. troops. The eight Blackhawks that left a year ago with the 2-211th are en route to Utah, with two possibly being transferred to another state, according to Maj. Peter Adams.
But Hess said Thursday he was focused on his friends, Linder and Barnes, and that he will try to attend funerals Friday and Saturday for both men.
For a day, at least, the 211th families focused on each other.
Warrant Officer Brian Yardley kissed his wife, Robyn, and held his children Kayden, 3, and Keiana, 1. He said he can expect to be home for at least two years now until the potential arises for another deployment.
"It is incredible to be back," Yardley said. "I've missed so much — I've pretty much missed her whole life," referring to Keiana.
But the Yardleys say they were fortunate, able to communicate almost daily during the deployment, often using a Web camera. "He got to see his dad," Robyn said about Kayden.
Lisa Gale of Draper had a similar experience with her husband of 11 years, Sgt. Kevin Gale, a Blackhawk crew chief.
"I talked with him almost daily," Gale said. "It was awesome."
An hour earlier, wives of soldiers coming home with I Corps reported the same thing — near constant contact with their husbands by phone and Internet.
While the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have introduced unprecedented lines of communication between families and their deployed members, the homecomings are also much different, particularly compared to Vietnam.
Veteran Gary Hutchings wanted to give his son-in-law, Maj. John O'Hara, the kind of welcome home Hutchings said he didn't receive when he was a young soldier returning from Vietnam.
Looking out over a crowd dotted by balloons and dominated by the colors red, white and blue, Hutchings said of the reception, "I think it means John knows he's appreciated for what he did. He paid a hell of a price," leaving a wife and two boys at home. "I was single," he added.
But when Hutchings first stepped on U.S. soil, he remembers being spit on by a "pretty girl" in San Francisco. Then his bus crashed. When he finally arrived by train in Provo, he had to call an aunt to pick him up.
O'Hara's father, Terry O'Hara, also a Vietnam vet, at least had his future wife waiting to pick him up. Terry was grateful for the turnout to welcome home the I Corps troops.
"It's something we didn't get," he said.
"And they still haven't done it, not the right way," Hutchings chimed in.
E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com