Photo by Jim Epperson Rosalie Howerton hugs Marine Sgt. Rubin Landin after making it home for two weeks from Iraq. Landin carries his two-year-old son and his father Jose looks on holding the American Flag. Nicholas Landin had just leaped into his father's arms, who had just arrived home from his second tour in Iraq.

Sgt. Rubin Landin, of Jacksonville, had made it home, and was welcomed with a sea of American flags, patriotic music and balloons. Landin is one of many soldiers who has been welcomed home by an organization honoring retuning soldiers to East Texas.

"It's good to know that while we are over there people are still concerned about us," Landin said.

An East Texas group, Welcome Home Soldiers!, started a year ago. The group was started by Anne DeLaet of Tyler.

About 20 members of the lose-knit organization honored and greeted Landin when he came home to the truck stop in Jacksonville.

The Rose Capital Chapter of the Military Officers Association has a membership of 117 and they are supporting the group to welcome home soldiers.

Photo by Jim Epperson Ed Williams, of Jacksonville volunteers with the Welcome Home Soldiers! to welcome soldiers homes. "We have taken Welcome Home Soldier Project as an ongoing project to help them with expenses, moral support, greeting of the soldiers and any thing that Anne DeLaet would like us to help her with," organizational secretary Shirley Lindsay said.

Rosalie Howerton tries to go to every welcoming there is, but she said it is difficult because often times the organization does not know when a soldier is coming home.

"We only know of a soldier returning home when a family member contacts us," Howerton said.

The organization takes donations, and is always looking for gift cards for national chain restaurants so a soldier can go out to eat with family.

Dave Reiner stood on the side of the road holding a large American flag. He is retired from the Air Force.

"When we came home from Vietnam, we didn't get a thing like this," Reiner said. "We got demonstrations."

To tell the group to welcome the family home, call (903) 561-6016, or email, wlcomhm@aol.com.