Photos by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

The Marine reserve unit, B Company, 4th Combat Engineering Battalion will return to Roanoke tonight.

Jordan Combs (on ladder), Kay Harvey (right) and Tim Myers hang a sign to welcome home Brad Harvey from Iraq. Brad Harvey, 22, has been in Iraq for seven months and will be returning to Roanoke with a group of about 60 Marines.

Nancy Dixon (far left) and Kay Harvey arrange red, white and blue plastic for the homecoming of Harvey's son from Iraq.

Editor's note: Debbie Farrar’s first name was intially incorrect in this story. Farrar is the liaison between the Marine Corps and families of members of 1st Platoon, B Company, 4th Combat Engineering Battalion.

Tonight's a big night -- a huge night -- a fantastic night -- for the families of 60 or so Marine reservists arriving back in Roanoke after months in Iraq.

But it's the just the start of a homecoming that experts say can stretch well beyond the hugs, kisses and welcoming banners.

The transition back to life on the home front may take months, and is receiving far more attention than once was the case.

"They could not have been more supportive, informative," Diane Knarr of Midlothian said about the counseling she received in advance of tonight's return. Her son, Tyler Knarr, left agricultural sciences studies at Virginia Tech to deploy in September with the rest of the 1st Platoon and headquarters personnel of Western Virginia-based B Company, 4th Combat Engineering Battalion.

"It seems like the Marines ... have really focused on the mental health of the people coming back," Diane Knarr said Thursday.

Benjamin Griffeth, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem and a Naval reservist who himself recently returned from duty in the Persian Gulf, said the military's focus on easing the transition back from war-zone duty "has changed tremendously," improving markedly in the early 1990s.

But, "with this war, with the level of trauma we're enduring, we're certainly being far more aggressive," he said.

The Marines scheduled to arrive tonight left Iraq for a week in Kuwait, then another week at the 29 Palms base in California, an intentionally slow return calculated to aid adjustment.

After arriving in Iraq in January, the combat engineers helped clear paths through minefields, exploded seized munitions and sometimes blew up a door to aid a patrol. No one from the unit died in Iraq, although the larger unit to which they were attached, the 24th Marine Regiment, did suffer casualties.

Families were briefed about the need to give their veterans space and time to re-acclimate, and to expect emotional highs and lows both for their Marines and for themselves. They advised that even simple things, like driving in a noncombat environment, might be hard at first. VA personnel plan to follow up with returning troops in 90 days to see if anyone needs help, Griffeth said.

Relatives of the B Company members said they welcomed the concern.

This was the second deployment for Kristy Hall's husband, Justin, of Danville. He also went to Iraq in 2005.

She gave high marks to the psychologists the Marines sent to speak at meetings of family members and said the information being given out this time was more detailed than during her husband's first tour.

"Everything they explained was something we'd experienced," Hall said of the psychologists' talks.

Like other family members contacted this week, she said she plans to heed the advice to go slow.

"When they get back it's hard at first for them to remember they're not in Iraq," Hall said.

She said she plans to take off two weeks from her job as a bank teller to stay at home with her husband, but will delay any large celebrations until maybe sometime in the fall. Other family members said they also plan to wait awhile before festivities.

"Basically you've got to just give them their space," said Salem resident Kelly Hines, whose son Korey left music studies at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C., for the deployment.

Debbie Farrar, who served as the 1st Platoon's liaison between families and the Marine Corps and whose son, Ben, was on his second deployment to Iraq, said the biggest issue for returning troops may just be fitting in after a year away from friends and family members.

"I think we now know more to look for" in terms of heading off problems, Farrar said.

"It's not a token effort," agreed Master Sgt. Daniel Boyce of the Marine Reserves Center in Roanoke. "Our goal is to return citizens back to the community from the Marines better than we got them."

Military families who want information or assistance on readjusting to civilian life can call Shelby Assad at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem at 982-2463, ext. 1-1765.