Families and friends welcomed home a group of Missouri National Guard soldiers Friday.
The four member unit spent nearly a year in Afghanistan.
Clapping, cheers, and hugs welcomed home the 135th Military Detachment Friday afternoon.
"I'm very glad to be back. I’ve been planning all the stuff I’m going to do for the last three months,” 135th Military History Detachment Corporal Katelyn Martin said. “I’m really excited to get started on new things and new adventures I'm doing."
21-year-old Martin was the youngest member in the unit.
She said it was very hard to be away from her family for so long, especially over the holidays.
Her father said it was just as hard for him.
"We have our Christmas tree still up with all the presents around it. When we get home she'll probably sit down and we'll have Christmas,” Katelyn's Father Eric Martin said. “She'll get her chance at Christmas and we'll be whole again."
The group's purpose in Afghansitan was to gather and preserve historical information about troops.
They conducted more than 500 interviews for the historical record.
But while they were gone, they missed some of their families' history.
"I missed my four kids and wife so much,” 135th Military History Detachment Maj. Donald Leothen said.
Major Donald Loethen said he knows his wife had to do just as much work at home as he did overseas.
"People under estimate how hard it is on the wife because she's not use to being basically a single mother with four kids for a year; and then dealing with all the emotions of me being gone and all the uncertainty,” said Leothen.
Loethen's wife said she's happy to have her husband back safe and sound.
The Military History Detachment was created in the 1980's.
Missouri was one of the first states to create a military history detachment.
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