Ross Taylor | The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot

Kirkland Wohlrab screams with joy Wednesday as she welcomes home her brother Sgt. Philip Wohlrab at the National Guard Armory in Lexington. They are from Buena Vista.

Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Soldiers from the Lynchburg-based 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 116th Brigade Combat Team stand at attention at the Bedford Armory on Wednesday.

Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

"I can't wait to look out the window and see him mowing the back yard," said Georgia Lindsey, wife of Capt. Cory Brandon Lindsey.

Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Sgt. Mark Woodring and Spc. Josh Woodring (middle and right), father and son, greet their family members after returning from Iraq. The woman in blue is Pegge Woodring, Mark's mother. The child at right is Gracie Woodring, Josh's niece.

Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Hannah Slusser, 8, and her brother Jacob, 7, greet their father, Sgt. Charlie Slusser, who has been in Iraq since March.

Ross Taylor | The Virginian-Pilot

Ashley Reynolds welcomes her husband, Chris, home with a kiss at the National Guard Armory in Lexington. They are from Martinsville.

Ross Taylor | The Virginian-Pilot

Christine Haslem of Centreville welcomes her husband, Garrett, on Wednesday in Lexington.

Witness the power of a single word: "Dismissed." With that, a dangerous, eight-month odyssey to Iraq and back came to an end Wednesday for the latest incarnation of Company A of the 1st Battalion of the Virginia National Guard's 116th Infantry Regiment -- the descendent of the Bedford Boys of D-Day fame.

The company's final formation in the Bedford Armory dissolved. Tired soldiers lifted women in sundresses onto their tiptoes -- and even off their feet -- for long overdue kisses.

Children were hoisted into the air by dads they hadn't seen since January -- and how they'd grown.

"I could tell when they sat on my lap," said Sgt. Charlie Slusser of Bedford.

The return of warriors is always sweet, but this one was perhaps a bit more joyous than most.

The original Bedford Boys lost 19 of 34 men on D-Day in 1944. This group and its entire battalion returned essentially unscathed. And it wasn't because they were sitting in the rear of the action.

The battalion, made up of companies based in Bedford, Christiansburg, Radford, Pulaski, Lexington, Clifton Forge, Martinsville, Lynchburg and Farmville, had just 60 days to train, compared with as much as a year given many units.

They were organized into supply convoy escort teams, but had no experience driving their 60,000-pound, mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles before they arrived in Kuwait.

Yet they completed 278 escort missions, traveling more than 172,000 miles and fending off 22 enemy attacks without a single injury. The soldiers expected to be in Iraq until December or January, but were sent home early as part of the U.S. drawdown of troops.

A National Guard company isn't like regular Army, pointed out 1st Lt. Patrick Wilson, the battalion's public affairs officer. The soldiers often know one another and their families back home.

Wilson said that can aid in a company's safety record. When you really know someone, and you know their mother, too, you might be more aware of that fellow soldier's safety, Wilson said. And you might have higher expectations for one another, too.

But these soldiers weren't just neighbors back home. They were family.

Slusser, 31, and his brother Spc. Jared Slusser, 28, weren't just in Company A together. They were on the same escort team.

"We were together most of the time," Charlie Slusser said. "It was nice to have a little piece of home with me."

The Slussers served with two other sets of brothers, and two sets of fathers and sons, including Sgt. Mark Woodring, 49, and his son, Spc. Josh Woodring, 21, both of Ohio.

The pair ate together often.

"It helped to be able to see him," Mark Woodring said of his son. Josh said the same of his dad.

But serving with his son came with a burden for Mark Woodring. Unlike family back home, he lived with an intimate knowledge of what his son was up to, and when he was in the most danger.

"It was a lot of stress," Woodring said.

The two contacted each other before either went on a mission, and when they returned.

Not that being back home diminished the worry for soldiers' wives, parents and children.

It wasn't so easy for soldiers to keep their kin in the dark about their scrapes with danger, not with technology such as Internet-based phone service and the online videoconferencing service Skype that allowed almost daily contact.

"We talked pretty much every day," said Jamie Slusser, Charlie's wife.

One Saturday, Cheryl Musgrove, a teacher, dialed her husband, Gordon, on Skype and they kept the connection open for four hours while she graded papers in Bedford and he watched a movie in Iraq. It was as close as they could get to hanging out on the sofa together.

Donna Slusser, Charlie and Jared's mother, kept in touch the old-fashioned way. She wrote letters that took two or three weeks to reach her boys. A lifelong moon watcher, she told her sons, "Look at the moon and give yourself a hug, and that's me hugging you."

When the Slussers learned they'd be coming home soon and told their mom that any new letters she sent would miss them, she felt "kind of lost," she said.

Even when the battalion was back at Camp Shelby, Miss., the worry didn't end.

"It doesn't seem real until I see him, until he walks through that door," Jamie Slusser said.

Just 2 p.m. Wednesday, it happened.

The cargo door at the west end of the armory gym opened, and in marched the members of Company A in tight formation, their company flag flying.

They looked tired -- in no small part to spending all night in the airport in Mississippi -- and still dusty.

Their expressions were serious, from the gray-haired older ones to the fresh faces barely beyond boyhood.

Some suppressed smiles.

While their families waited, their accomplishments were lauded, and then finally that single, powerful word they awaited.

"Dismissed."