By Jeremy Redmon

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Hinesville – In one of his first steps toward normal life, Sgt. Argo Smith shed his mint green Army uniform, left Fort Stewart and strolled through a Wal-Mart here with his wife Kimberly.

The experience was relaxing for what the Georgia National Guardsman didn’t have to do. He didn’t have to man a machine gun atop a Humvee or keep his head on a swivel for insurgents and roadside bombs as he did during his yearlong deployment in Afghanistan.

Tuesday was Smith’s first day back in Georgia. And he was checking things off his list. After Wal-Mart, lunch with Kimberly was next. They grabbed a booth in the corner of a Chili’s here and had some strawberry lemonade, cheeseburger sliders, fried shrimp and grilled chicken. He talked about all the other things on his list: his wife’s homemade peach cobbler, red velvet cake and apple pie.

Still, he couldn’t completely shake his experiences in Afghanistan, including one in January when a suicide bomber attacked his convoy.

"I'm still on edge and a little jumpy," said Smith, who lives in Covington and works as a security guard at Fort McPherson in Atlanta.

Smith is among more than 70 soldiers from Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team who returned to a hero’s welcome at Fort Stewart early Tuesday morning. They spent a year in Afghanistan training that country’s police and security forces.

After flying into Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, the soliders were bused to Fort Stewart where they formed ranks on Cottrell Field and listened patiently as recordings of the National Anthem and the Army Song played. Then they were released to their loved ones. Cheering and crying with excitement, wives, mothers, fathers and children rushed across the field to the guardsmen. Kimberly was among them.

“I’m not going to let go,” she said as she hugged Argo, whom she married 16 years ago after the two attended Tucker High School together. “I can touch him. I can put my hands on him. He’s here.”

Smith told his wife he had planned a surprise trip for them to Las Vegas in April. She deserves it after caring for his sick mother and raising their two sons, ages 10 and 13, and their 15-year-old daughter while he was away, Smith said. Kimberly credited her brother-in-law and other relatives and friends with helping her.

“It’s all planned out,” Argo said about the Las Vegas trip as the two lingered in a tight embrace. He looked down at their feet where the grass was soppy from a recent rainfall and declared: “If the ground wasn’t wet, I would probably kiss it.”

About 3,200 soldiers from Smith's brigade started deploying to Afghanistan early last year. More waves of 48th Brigade soldiers will return to similar homecomings in coming weeks. The last group is expected in early April.

The brigade is based in Macon but includes soldiers from across the state. Smith and the others who returned Tuesday morning are from Alpha Battery of the 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery based in Effingham County.

Some 48th soldiers will not be returning home. Seven were killed in action there. One more died in a vehicle rollover.

Many others have been wounded. Sgt. 1st Class James Creager, of Augusta, was among them. He said he was shot in both legs by an insurgent who was wearing an Afghani police uniform on Sept. 12. With tears in his eyes, Creager greeted his fellow soldiers as they emerged from their plane at Hunter Army Airfield Tuesday. 

“I promised the guys I would meet them at the airplane and I did,” he said proudly.

Five other 48th soldiers were injured in a suicide bombing attack at their joint U.S-Afghani combat outpost on Feb. 11. The suicide bomber detonated his explosives near the soldiers’ barracks, according to wives of the wounded troops.

It’s unclear how the attacker infiltrated the base, but news reports said he was wearing an Afghani police uniform. A military spokesman in Afghanistan said in an email last week that he could not confirm those details but that an investigation was under way. Three of the injured soldiers have returned to duty while two others have returned to the United States for treatment. All five are from the Newnan-based Bravo Company of the 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry.

Tuesday’s homecoming was familiar for some guardsmen. Soldiers from the 48th returned to similar homecoming events here in 2006, after spending a year in Iraq fighting insurgents, training Iraq soldiers and guarding supply convoys. Twenty-six of the brigade's soldiers did not return from that deployment, victims of accidents or casualties of war.

Many 48th soldiers have full-time jobs outside the National Guard, as policemen, firemen, teachers and entrepreneurs. They left for Afghanistan last year amid layoffs across the country, and they return in a tough job market. Federal law protects these soldiers’ jobs under certain conditions and prohibits potential employers from discriminating against them.

As they ate lunch Tuesday, Kimberly Smith caught her husband up on the holidays he missed and what their children have been doing. She talked about the boys their teenager daughter has been dating and how their daughter recently announced she wanted to drive a Mercedes and attend Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach.

Argo nodded and smiled as he listened, remembering aloud that he must give his daughter driving lessons and pick out a new dog he had promised his children.

“I’m just glad to have him back, knowing he doesn’t have to go anywhere for a while,” Kimberly said. “We can get back to living and having fun.”