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Posted: 8:59 PM- Mandy Hoffman knew this day would be difficult.

After nearly a year's time - most of it spent on the bomb-laden roads of northern Iraq - the 116th Convoy Security Company was coming home. Yet Hoffman's husband wouldn't be among those in either of the two group of soldiers that arrived at the Utah Air National Guard base in Salt Lake City this afternoon. Like 27 other soldiers from the 116th, Chuck Hoffman had volunteered to extend his tour of duty.

"It was hard to understand at first," Mandy Hoffman said as she stood in the back of the Air Guard hangar, holding her 6-month-old daughter in her arms as other families reunited with their soldiers. "When he said he wanted to extend, I wasn't real happy about it."

But Chuck Hoffman told his wife that he was needed. And though it was tough, Mandy Hoffman resolved to support his decision - and then to support the families whose soldiers did return this week.

"We're a family," she said of the thousands of those connected by blood or friendship to the 200-member unit. "We're sticking together."

Even so, most of the parents and spouses of soldiers who extended their tours opted not to come today. "A lot of them, they just couldn't make it," said Jennie Taylor, a leader in the unit's family readiness group and the wife of another soldier who answered the call to stay. "They just knew they couldn't handle it."

Utah Guard commander Brian Tarbet said he initially turned down the requests of dozens of 116th soldiers who asked to stay - some for as long as a year. The unit - composed largely of soldiers who had volunteered to deploy to begin with - had arrived in Iraq at a time of intense violence. Many had survived roadside bomb attacks. Several had been wounded. And Tarbet wanted to get them home to their families.

"It was selfish, too," the major general acknowledged. "We need them back here, back to training with their units."

But back in Iraq, the so-called "surge" of U.S. forces - widely credited as being one of several factors contributing to an improved security situation across the war torn nation - was nearing an end. Tens of thousands of soldiers were about to return home. And the job wasn't over.

Tarbet said he got a call from the National Guard Bureau. An Arkansas unit, due shortly in Baghdad, was short-handed. He finally relented - with one condition.

"I told them, 'OK, you can stay, but you have to ask your wife or your mother,' " Tarbet said.

Sandy Stoddard knew as soon as she heard her son's voice that something was afoot. "He said 'hi' and I said, 'What's wrong, Zeke?' and he said, 'nothing' and I said, 'Zeke, tell me - what is it?' "

Zeke Amavisca has extended for at least 60 days. Stoddard said it was hard, as a mother, to know that her son was going to remain in harm's way. "But I also know that he is doing what he believes in," she said.

Tarbet said that none of the soldiers who extended their tours was offered a financial incentive to do so. They did it because they believed in the mission, he said.

Although she knew it would be difficult to see other mothers embracing their long-away children this afternoon, Stoddard decided to come to the homecoming anyway. "Now, I'm really happy I came," she said. "I look down and I see the name tags on these soldiers and I see the names of guys that my son has been talking about."

Jana Belliston had a similar reaction as she watched the soldiers step off the plane. "I don't think I realized it at first, but although my son was the one I thought about and worried about, it was all of these guys together," she said. "You know, when they got off the plane they ran to their families - but then they immediately ran over to their buddies, the ones they had been with in Iraq. They were anxious to be with them again."

Belliston said that simply knowing that these soldiers - individuals for whom her son deeply cared - were safe "made me feel this instant connection to them. I felt relief for them and for all of their moms and wives that have been going through what we have been going through."

Reyn Belliston has extended his tour for at least 90 days - pushing back wedding plans to do so.

His fiancee opted not to come today. "She couldn't face him not getting off that plane," Jana Belliston said. "She's behind him, but of course she also wants to move on with her life."

Although she's supportive of his decision, Jana Belliston is also ready to see her son home - hopefully soon.

And "having been there and felt that joy," Belliston said, now she knows what it will feel like when he finally does come home.

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