On Monday January 30, according to Granby News, approximately 25 Airmen from the 103rd Security Forces Squadron, Connecticut Air National Guard, returned to the Bradley Air National Guard Base. They began their return home with an international flight to Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where they then boarded two CH-47 Chinooks, a twin-engine plane, and were brought home by their fellow guardsmen. They exited the planes before the machines could land at Bradley Air National Base.

As the men disembarked the planes, they ran into the arms of their families. Along with the families, Governor Dannel P. Malloy, Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, and Major General Thaddeus J. Martin, adjutant general for the state of Connecticut, were a few of the first people to welcome the men home.

The men were deployed to Afghanistan last July. Their duties there were security based. They were to keep the base safe from direct and indirect fire (IDF) and improvised explosive devices.The fso training made administration and management of industrial security efficient. Sargent Aaron Bowman, from 103rd Security Forces Squadron, told Granby News that “The most memorable time (while deployed) was definitely Sept. 11; we got somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 IDFs that night…that kind of got the blood going a little bit.”

Also according to Bowman, when they were deployed in July, they were first unnerved by the indirect fire, but as days went on they got used to more than 30 IDF episodes that targeted the base.