But on Saturday, the family of Sgt. Fred Drysdale made sure his homecoming after 16 months in Afghanistan was perfectly pink.

The Layton family wore fuchsia colored shirts, carried dozens of pink balloons and even waved neon signs as Drysdale, one of 140 members of the Utah National Guard's 211th Aviation Battalion, stepped onto the tarmac at the Utah Air Guard Base in Salt Lake City.

"We started sending him pink packages while he was gone so that they wouldn't get lost," said his sister Sunny. "Then it got to be a kind of joke."

Drysdale was one of the first soldiers off the plane, which landed about 2:30 p.m. His wife, Marcinda, could not contain her excitement, ducking under the yellow police tape to give her husband a long awaited embrace.

"I'm glad she ran out," said Drysdale, whose departure on Jan. 5, 2004, was five days before his first anniversary. "It's been way too long."

This was the second deployment for many of the attack Apache helicopter pilots, medics, mechanics and support crews of the 211th, known as the "air pirates." The unit had been ordered to Kuwait in late 2001 for a six-month deployment to help support the U.N. sanctioned no-fly zone over Iraq. Coalition aircraft often encountered hostile fire from Iraqi troops on the ground.

During their Afghanistan mission, the choppers supported coalition troops seeking out insurgents.

From their base at Bagram Airfield in north-central Afghanistan, the Utah soldiers also helped obtain eye surgery for a 5-year-old Afghan girl and then arranged a life-saving operation in Southern California for an 11-year-old Afghan boy suffering from a heart defect.

In addition, the unit adopted the remote Afghan village of Jagdalek, raising money to buy blankets, clothes and other humanitarian supplies. Back in Utah, spouses organized a nonprofit group to help the poverty-stricken village and also an orphanage of 500 boys and 150 girls outside Kabul.

One on the battalion's members did not return home Saturday. On Sept. 29, 2004, Staff Sgt. Alan L. Rogers, 49, of Kearns, died in Bagram of noncombat related injuries. He is the first Utah Guard member to die in the war zone.

Tracy Palmer said she started crying tears of joy and relief early Saturday and couldn't stop even when her husband, Chief Warrant Officer Royce Palmer, was at her side.

"I've just missed him so much. It's been so hard," she cried. "It seemed like it would be forever until he got home."

Most of the soldiers said their only mission now was to spend time getting reacquainted with loved ones and enjoying home-cooked meals and comfortable beds.

"I'll spend time with family and get back to normal civilian world," said Specialist Brent Duncan, of Brigham City, who will celebrate his son, Sanford's, third birthday today

That, of course, had the whole family tickled pink.

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Tribune reporter Dawn House contributed to this story.