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AP: Ohio Welcomes Marine Corps Unit Back Home---

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A badly battered Marine Corps unit came home Friday to miles of welcoming neighbors, a sea of cheering family members and countless tearful kisses.

People waving flags along a 20-mile parade route roared as four buses passed carrying the 140 Marines of Lima Company from Columbus' main airport to the other airport across town. Some of the southern Ohio reservists wrote "thank you" on pieces of paper that they held up to the windows.

The company, part of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, lost 16 reservists in Iraq, including nine in August in that country's deadliest roadside bombing of U.S. troops.

Hundreds of relatives with welcome signs greeted the camouflage-clad reservists at Rickenbacker International Airport.

"I still don't believe we're home," said Sgt. Alex Rozanski of Columbus after he kissed his fiancee. "Everything is just so surreal right now. I can't believe it's over. It's the greatest day of my life."

Lance Cpl. Craig Miller held his 3-week-old son, Madden, for the first time and carried him around the parking lot, showing him off to friends.

"He's so beautiful, and it's so wonderful to see him," he said.

The parents of one of the Lima Company Marines killed in the bombing — Sgt. Justin Hoffman, 27, of Delaware — joined the families greeting the Marines who made it back.

"This really is like a family," Chuck Hoffman, 59, said of the support the family received from the other Marine families after his son's death. "If it weren't a family we would have just walked away, but they grieved with us so we want to rejoice with them."

More Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines returned to West Virginia, New York and two northeast Ohio cities. The battalion lost a total of 48 Marines in the war.

In suburban Cleveland on Thursday, a crowd that police estimated at 5,000 lined a one-mile parade route from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to welcome back the 160 Marines of the battalion's Headquarters & Service Company.

Early Friday, the tough faces of 140 reservists with Akron Weapons Company were transformed when they were reunited with their families inside a museum near the Akron-Canton Airport.

Tears of joy streamed down Lance Cpl. Michael Boerio's face and those of most of the relatives who swarmed around him.

"I waited so long to see you guys. I didn't think I was going to make it sometimes, but you know what? I thought of you the whole way," Boerio cried as he embraced his family. "And I'm home. I finally made it home."