By Dorie Turner
Staff Writer

Squeals of excitement filled the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport lobby Thursday afternoon as two soldiers with the 278th Regimental Combat Team arrived home on leave from Iraq.

Dressed in fatigues, Staff Sgt. Billy Cross, 40, of Fort Oglethorpe, and Sgt. Danny Kilgore, 26, of Chattanooga, walked down the long corridor toward tearful groups of family and friends.

"The excitement didn't hit me until I walked down that ramp," Staff Sgt. Cross said with his arm around his daughter, Brandy Cross, 14, and his stepdaughter, Tiffany Hagan, 18. "I'm just glad to be home for a while."

Staff Sgt. Cross and his brother, Sgt. Kenneth Cross, 42, of Rossville, are members of the Chattanooga-based 181st Field Artillery Battalion. They volunteered to go with the 278th when the team was activated last year. The brothers are serving in separate camps in Iraq, where the 278th has been since November.

Soldiers get one four-day pass and one two-week leave for every year of deployment, officials said. The 278th waited until after the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq to begin the leaves and passes, officials said.

Ms. Hagan said she plans to put her father to work helping her move from an apartment in Fort Oglethorpe to one in Red Bank. Not having him around has been "different," she said.

"Especially when you've got problems, it's like, 'Dad, you're so far away,'" Ms. Hagan said.

Staff Sgt. Cross said he plans to relax and spend time with his family while home. He also will celebrate his 41st birthday here.

Sgt. Kilgore and his wife, Brooke, 25, married just four days before the soldier left last summer to train with the 278th in the California desert.

"We knew we'd end up getting married," Mrs. Kilgore said. "We just pushed it up a little bit."

This is the Kilgores' first Valentine's Day as a married couple, but Mrs. Kilgore said they don't have any plans other than "just getting him here."

"I'm anxious and excited," she said just minutes before her husband arrived.

While the two travel-weary soldiers hugged family members at the airport, onlookers waiting in line to go through the metal detectors clapped.

Staff Sgt. Cross said the welcome-home reception was "more than I could imagine."

"I got choked up," he said.

It took four days with several stops to travel from Iraq to Chattanooga, he said.

E-mail Dorie Turner at dturner@timesfreepress.com

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