Army National Guard Unit Arrives Home in Southland

About 300 soldiers from the California National Guard returned home and to civilian life Saturday after spending the last year on homeland defense duty.

Troops from the Third Battalion of the 160th Infantry Regiment arrived at the Los Alamitos Army Airfield aboard a chartered DC-10 to a thunderous welcome from family and friends, who broke through a porous line of sentries to greet their loved ones on the tarmac as they deplaned.

“I’m supposed to go,” pleaded a soldier who was mobbed by his family as soon as his combat boot touched the ground.

The soldiers had been ordered to stand in formation for the traditional head count and to await the report “All present and accounted for, sir!” before joining their families.

Rene Espinoza, 18, of Carson fidgeted nervously with 4-month-old Victoria Cathleen in her arms while waiting for her husband, Spc. Frank Espinoza, 20, to appear at the plane’s door. She had to wait a long time.

Espinoza is a member of Charlie Company, the last unit to leave the plane.

“Where is he? I haven’t seen anybody else from his platoon,” Rene said to her mother, Rosemary Naval.

Finally, a soldier walked out with Charlie Company’s insignia, and Rene recognized another who is in her husband’s platoon. When Spc. Espinoza appeared at the plane’s door, his family rushed forward.

His mother-in-law put two colorful leis around his neck, setting him apart in the sea of camouflage-wearing troops on the tarmac.

Earlier, Rudy Naval, a helicopter door gunner in Vietnam, chuckled as he recounted his fight with the Army bureaucracy to make sure that his daughter’s and son-in-law’s wedding went on as planned in Las Vegas in January, even if he was on a mission in support of Noble Eagle One, the name of the operation for homeland security.

Naval said Espinoza had been granted leave to attend his wedding. But 24 hours before the ceremony, he was told he couldn’t leave his post, Naval said.

“Nothing’s changed,” said Naval, recalling his own experience in the Army three decades ago.

“We had everything planned, and about 40 family members were in Las Vegas for the wedding. I started calling people, beginning with the guy at the guard gate, all the way to Frank’s battalion commander. They finally told him he could go to his wedding, which took place on time.”

Later, Espinoza was allowed to go home for his daughter’s birth.

On Saturday, an excited Espinoza rushed to his wife and daughter when the battalion was dismissed. After giving his wife a quick kiss, he reached for the baby.

“I’ve only seen her seven times in my whole life. I just want to hold her,” he said.

Now that he is a civilian again, Espinoza said, he will return to college, where he was majoring in computer information systems before his unit was activated.

But even after Espinoza and the others were dismissed, the troops could spend only a short time getting reacquainted with their families before they were bused to armories in San Pedro, Inglewood, Glendale, Oxnard and Bakersfield, from where they departed last October.

During their deployment, the soldiers guarded Army ammunition depots in Utah.