Jessica Clair was greeted with a party in Chesterville Saturday.
CHESTERVILLE – Jessica Clair, an E4 Army specialist, was officially welcomed home by friends and family at a party Saturday after serving 368 days in Kuwait as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Along with 130 members of the 112th Army National Guard Medical Unit from Bangor, Clair was placed on active duty 14 months ago. She returned here Wednesday evening to her parents’ home.

Clair is the daughter of Ross and Maureen Clair, and sister to Autumn, 6, and Dillon, 16. “I know she is safer here than she was over there. I am some glad to have her back,” said Dillon.

With the support of her family, Clair joined the Army National Guard at 17, while still attending Mount Blue High School in Farmington. She spent 10 months in the National Guard, serving one weekend a month and two weeks a year before heading to basic training in 2001.

Clair said the most difficult part of her military service was “adjusting to being with the same people 24/7. You work with them, eat with them, have your free time with them. There is no place to go to be by yourself. I grew as a person to learn to get along with people, even the ones you don’t like, because you are stuck with them for a year.”

She added, “The weather was extreme compared to Maine weather.”

The Clair family hosted a welcome home/thank you party for Jessica on Saturday afternoon at the Chesterville Town Hall. “The town sent her care packages and they supported us as a family, as her homecoming kept getting delayed,” said her mother. “They continued to ask about her during all these many months. First it was supposed to be Thanksgiving, then Christmas.”

Part of the reason behind the party, her father explained, was “to have some way to show our thanks to the community for all their support, the care packages and letters they sent to Jessica and her unit.”

About 50 people welcomed Jessica home, including her grandmother Kitty Gee. “It was an awful long 14 months. I can’t imagine how it was to live over a year in a tent. I wrote her at least three times a week and sent pictures of home. I had a yellow ribbon up the whole time she was gone. It came down on Wednesday and now I have red, white and blue ribbons,” said the grandmother.

Clair described her desert environment, with record temperatures last summer topping 140 degrees Fahrenheit. “The sand is like walking on concrete,” she said, noting that sandstorms that lasted for months required goggles and hurt the exposed skin on your hands and face.

Clair said she planned to spend about three weeks resting and visiting family and friends, before she begins looking for a job in early May.

Her other big task will be to move into the new house that her father built for her in Chesterville. “It will keep her close to home, at least for a while,” he noted.

Saying she’s glad to be home, Clair, noted that she faces an uncertain future because she could be recalled to active duty at any time. “Nobody knows if we will need to return,” she said.

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