(Radio Iowa) – More Iowa National Guard soldiers returned home from a deployment in the Middle East Thursday. Around 100 soldiers from the Second Brigade Combat Team of the 34th Infantry Division got a rousing welcome home in Sioux City. Sergeant Ben Morehead of Sioux City had several people on hand to welcome him back. “My friends, my family, and then work, the Sioux City Fire Department, it’s been outstanding. This whole time, I’ve had a lot of people send packages, check in with phone calls, text messages, supporting us, making sure we’re doing all right, and it just means a lot, and it just goes to show how strong that, you know, the camaraderie is,” he says. Morehead was deployed as a combat medic in Syria with the First Squadron 113th Calvary Regiment, which lost two members in an ISIS attack.

“We were in Syria and just to counter ISIS was kind of the main mission. It changed a lot over the course of that whole deployment,” he says. “There’s a lot going on in the Middle East right now. And so it seemed that something was changing every day, but really proud of this unit, this group. They really leaned on each other through the goods and the bads, ups and downs, and that’s what got us through it.” Morehead’s wife Amie said it was his second deployment, but the first in the two-and-a-half years they’ve been married. “I’m very thankful that he’s home and he’s safe and I definitely relied a lot on my family and friends and neighbors this year,” she says.

Major Dexter Melhaf is the squadron officer in charge and says the support from Iowa and the families back home helped everyone in the unit. “There are so many organizations from the Siouxland community as well as the state of Iowa as a whole that sent us care packages and you take it for granted back home. But a piece of mail brightens a soldier’s day tremendously when they get a package with one of their favorite snacks in there. So to the communities and the families, thank you for that,” Melhaf says.

Other welcome home ceremonies were held in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.