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SALT LAKE CITY -- As the University of Utah football team played in front of a sold-out crowd Saturday night, there was one group on campus completely unconcerned with the game or the score. But they were just as excited as the football fans when their loved ones returned home to Fort Douglas.
For nine months, family members and friends waited for this day. Everyone had a different story.
"He asked me to marry him," a woman named Kristen said of her fiancé.
That was nine months ago. Her finance, a marine reservist with the Fox Company, has been training and serving in Iraq ever since.
"I'm so excited he's coming home!" Kristen said. She and Cpl. William Cross were engaged only three days before he left for Iraq.
Kristen finally found herself in William's arms again on Saturday.
"Whenever there was time to think about home, she was on my mind. Otherwise, we try to focus on the mission," William said.
That is just one story involving the 69 Marines who made it home safely. Sylvia Ellsworth was waiting for her son.
"I'm just so proud of him and our military," Sylvia said.
The Marine reservists helped train the Iraqi military overseas and worked closely with locals.
"We were on a smaller outpost. It was good ‘cause we got to know each other," said Lance Cpl. Randall Ellsworth.
"The people were friendly and appreciative of how things were coming along," William Cross said.
The mission was a success, just like the homecoming. As for William Cross, his next mission will be his wedding in December.
"It's already planned, we just gotta get it over with," he said.
Randall Ellsworth said he has a few things planned too. The first thing he said he was going to do when he got home was eat his mom's homemade banana cream pie.
If the Fox Company is deployed again, it won't be for a couple of years.
E-mail: abutterfield@ksl.com
