The parade route was lined with Kearney residents and school children waiving American flags and yellow ribbons.

That was the welcome in Kearney for members of the Chadron-based Nebraska Army National Guard's Ten-57th Light-Medium Trucking Company. About 40 members of the unit were honored at the noon-time parade before busing on home to the Chadron area later today.

Some 150 members of the unit have spent more than a year in Iraq.

After about a week of rest, briefings and family reunions at Camp Ashland between Lincoln and Omaha, most of the 120 unit members who returned early were being honored at the camp in a morning ceremony.

An informal welcome is planned later when the unit arrives in Chadron. Citizens figure to line the streets of the northwest Nebraska town when the bus arrives there. The troops will unload at the National Guard Armory on the Chadron State College Campus.

A more formal celebration is being planned for May 2.