Truman returned home.

[Navy6064]

Associated Press
April 19, 2005

NORFOLK, Va. - The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman returned home Monday after a six-month deployment for the war in Iraq, and sailors were greeted by thousands of family members who wept, cheered and waved red, white and blue pompoms.

The white-suited sailors who were lined up on the deck of the carrier responded by waving tiny American flags and tossing paper streamers.

"I'm going to start crying," Laurie Keidel said as she waited in the hot afternoon sun at the Norfolk Naval Station. "I'm just so glad to have my kid home."

The strike group had no deaths or serious injuries in two deployments during the war.

Vice Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, commander of the Navy's Second Fleet, said the strike group performed a surveillance mission in the Persian Gulf, boarding suspicious vessels and guarding oil terminals.

Earlier Monday, about 1,000 sailors on three support ships arrived at Norfolk. Other members of the strike group, which totaled 6,500 sailors, returned from the six-month deployment over the weekend.