Town Ready to Party--82nd Is Coming Home : Homecoming: From Fayetteville, N.C., to San Clemente, news of returning troops has the home-folk planning celebrations and rejoicing.

Peace in the Middle East transformed Fayetteville, N.C., home of the 82nd Airborne Division, into a jubilant town, one that is anticipating the return of the first large group of U.S. troops as soon as Thursday.

So much has changed since a month ago, when Connie Bidwell and two associates began planning a support rally for the troops overseas. Now, she says, the rally--scheduled for Sunday--”has changed to a homecoming celebration.”

News spread Tuesday that the Pentagon believes that the first flight home will land at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington on Thursday and that members of the 82nd will be aboard.

By Sunday, the troops should be in Fayetteville for a party that will include the town’s 60,000 residents, supporters from as far away as California and 18 school bands.

“This is what we wanted in the first place--to celebrate a victory. It’s like God has listened to all my prayers,” Bidwell said.

Fayetteville, of course, is not alone. In addition to members of the 82nd Airborne, the corps of returning troops includes some Marines from Camp Pendleton who have been in the Persian Gulf since the early days of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

Jackie Orozco, 28, a manager at Lucky Food Center in San Clemente, said she broke into tears Tuesday afternoon when her daughter called her at work to say that Orozco’s husband was leaving later that evening for Andrews Air Force Base via Germany. Lance Cpl. Robert O. Orozco, 28, had been on the front lines since the beginning of September.

“I started to cry in front of everybody, and all these people were looking at me,” she said with a laugh. “Some of the customers in the store were crying too.”

In Fayetteville, families and friends of the 32,000 soldiers from nearby Ft. Bragg who joined the Desert Storm operation have been praying and hoping that their loved ones would return safely. Troopers from the 82nd were among the first to ship out, beginning just five days after the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

At Ft. Bragg, Staff Sgt. Cindy Darst, a spokeswoman, said the troops’ jobs include everything from communications to medical assistance to infantry fighting. “They could shoot you and sew you up,” she said.

Befitting such a varied group, the town is sprucing up in every way imaginable. “We’ve got people dusting their houses, mowing their lawns and putting up more yellow ribbons,” said Darst. Others report little girls’ hair sprouting red, white and blue bows. Tuesday, the Old Fayetteville Assn. received a shipment of banners to hang on light posts along the town commons.

The preparations in Fayetteville, like those in hundreds of towns across America, remind everyone of how little was done when Vietnam veterans came home. And many believe that somehow the fervor of this homecoming, as well as the fury of the allied victory, will help erase the Vietnam memory.

Families and friends also were busily making private plans to celebrate lost holidays, such as Christmas and New Year’s, birthdays and anniversaries.

No one is happier than Kay Cortez, who Tuesday received two letters from her husband, James, a staff sergeant who inspects helicopters. The letters were written before the war ended. Since the cease-fire, she has shouted for joy so much that she can barely whisper.

“I cried, laughed, thanked the Lord that it was over,” she said Tuesday. “I’ve been waiting seven months for this day.”

Like everyone else, the Cortezes have special plans for celebrating. They’re going camping for a week. “That surprised me,” she said, “because I thought he’d be tired of camping by the time he got home.”

April Sinclair has hung a huge blue banner across her living room to honor her husband, 1st Lt. Sean Sinclair. Big black letters say, “Welcome Home, Sean.”

Asked how they will celebrate, she said, simply: “I’m going to spoil him.”

With so much to catch up on, and so much that has changed because of the war experience, some spouses find their joy mixed with nervousness. Wendy Schultheis has bought a navy-blue dress to wear for her husband, Brock, a machine-gunner with whom she last talked in January by telephone. “It’s a little like going out on a blind date with your husband,” she said. “I want everything to be absolutely perfect.”

The homecoming will be a celebration of victory, of appreciation for the GIs’ jobs well done and of the resurgence of pride that has swept the nation.

Gaye Wilbanks, a junior high school teacher in Fayetteville, said she looks forward to the celebrations, hoping that they will “further strengthen the patriotism we’ve seen already.”

There is one more reason to celebrate coming home from a war that many thought would drag on for many more months. Said Wilbanks: “We’re all so pleased it was so short.”