By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer
Reservists who served a year in the war zone are welcomed at a Lewiston ceremony.

LEWISTON – After returning home individually, ending a year’s duty in Iraq with intimate welcome-homes in airport terminals, 25 Army reservists from Maine were honored together in a packed Lewiston gymnasium Thursday.

A band played. A general handed out awards. And one by one, the soldiers stood with their families as more than 250 people applauded.

Such was the first of 14 welcome-home celebrations planned for members of the 98th Division, a 700-soldier unit spread across Iraq since last fall.

For some of the soldiers, Thursday’s event seemed a welcome chance to reunite with members of their unit they had little seen during their service. For others, it seemed an interruption to a homecoming that had already begun.

“These people have been coming in for weeks,” said Kate Roberts, an administrator with the unit, which is based in Rochester, N.Y., but spread across the Northeast. Of the 41 soldiers scheduled to attend the event, only 25 went.

“I just want to get through this,” Staff Sgt. Edmond Nadeau of Hiram said.

Nadeau returned home on Saturday. Only last month, he was driving a tractor-trailer across Iraqi highways, trying to keep to the center of the road to avoid homemade bombs and watching roofs for snipers.

He’s adjusting, he said. He’s spending time with his wife and children, who stood with him as he took his turn in front of the audience and shook hands with Maj. Gen. Bruce Robinson, his division commander.

Robinson called each of the returning soldiers “warrior citizens.”

The hour-long service, held at the National Guard armory on the Alfred Plourde Parkway, included songs and salutes. A chaplain led prayers. Taps were played for the five soldiers from the overall division who were killed, including Sgt. Lawrence Roukey of Westbrook.

The focus, however, was the one-by-one awards.

Staff Sgt. Dyana White of Corrina received her award with her husband and their three children.

As Robinson shook her hand, White’s daughter lay her head on her shoulder.

White, who returned at the start of September, said she is adjusting well. A worker in the Maine Department of Corrections’ Augusta office, she is looking forward to returning to her job.

“I can only clean the house so many times,” she said.

For Nadeau, it’s likely to be less simple.

Only 18 days after he arrived in Iraq, he was hurt in a car bombing. The armored Ford Explorer he was driving was demolished when the attacker drove across the median and ignited a bomb.

The explosion flipped the SUV onto its side. Nadeau injured his back and his neck. The treatment goes on.

He still can’t feel two of his fingers. And there’s some pain.

He’s not bitter, though.

He said he’s proud of the work he did. And he believes the good work of U.S. troops is being unreported.

Soldiers know they’re doing good work, he said. They know by the handshakes and the smiles of the Iraqi people

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