S.C. National Guard members return home

Soldiers who served in Afghanistan arrive; C-17 airmen to land Sunday

More Charleston area troops are making their way home from extended overseas deployments in the war.

Twenty-six members of the South Carolina National Guard's 218th Brigade Combat Team who served in Afghanistan arrived Thursday in North Charleston.

A contracted airline's bankruptcy last month prevented hundreds of soldiers from getting home on time.

One of them was Capt. Trae Redmond III, who was among the group that arrived about 5 p.m. Thursday at the National Guard Armory on Cross County Road. He left in January 2007 and his son, Grady, was born the next month.

"We got through it," Redmond's wife, Jennifer, said Friday evening as her husband bathed their son at their North Charleston home.

Jennifer Redmond said she missed the "normal stuff," like going out to dinner or spending time on the boat, while her husband was deployed.

"It's the simple things really that you just want back so badly," she said.

The 218th Brigade helped train the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Security Forces for a year.

The Guard said all 1,800 members of the unit should be back home by the middle of the month.

Nearly a third of the Newberry-based unit's members are from the greater Charleston area.

Meanwhile, more than 115 airmen from the 17th Airlift Squadron at Charleston Air Force Base are scheduled to return early Sunday from their deployment in Southwest Asia, the public affairs office said Friday.

The airmen were deployed for 120 days. They served under the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron and supported Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom and provided support to the president.

The airmen logged more than 7,000 hours in the C-17A Globemaster III.

They delivered more than 110 million pounds of cargo and transported more than 130,000 members of the U.S. Armed Forces throughout Southwest Asia, the public affairs office said.

They also delivered close to 1 million pounds of supplies to troops at various forward operating bases.

The airdrops set records for the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron.

Reach Nita Birmingham at nbirmingham@postandcourier.com.