Soldiers stepped off the buses, right into the arms of their loved ones.

"You can't explain how this feels. Nobody can," Spc. Matthew Kissel said. "Unless you go away from your family and everything you love and come home."

Soldiers from Bravo Company left Ft. Dix in New Jersey just before 1 p.m.

They've spent the past nine months in Iraq with the 56th Stryker Brigade.

Their return marks the end of a year long mobilization of the only stryker brigade in the National Guard and more than six months of combat operations north of Baghdad.

They've spent the past week going through a demobilization process.

"They help the soldiers prepare to reintegrate with their families," Captain Jason Hoffman said.

Bravo Company was the first company to return to the Alleghenies. Soldiers from Charlie Company, made up of soldiers from the Bellefonte, State College and Tyrone area are expected home later this week.