"Daddy!" his 21-month-old daughter Erin yelled every few minutes as citizen soldiers crossed the stage at the University of Utah's Kingsbury Hall to collect tokens of appreciation from the Army.

"Anybody in a uniform she thinks is her daddy," said Megan Arzola, Erin's mother and Arzola's wife.

Arzola received a U.S. flag, a "Welcome Home Warrior Citizen" flag, a set of soldier lapel pins and a warrior citizen coin for the year he spent in Afghanistan as part of the 854th Quartermaster Company. The other reservists, all part of the 96th U.S. Army Regional Readiness Command, got the same tokens of appreciation for their service.

The ceremony was part of the "Welcome Home Warrior Citizen" award program launched by the Army in December. The program honors reservists who served in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom.

Eligible for the award are soldiers deployed for 180 or more consecutive days, physicians or medical personnel deployed for at least 90 straight days, soldiers wounded on duty and prisoners of war who have been released.

The 96th command is made up of 6,800 reservists from Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and North and South Dakota. Honored Sunday were members of the Headquarters & Headquarters Detachment, 307th Quartermaster Battalion; 146th Transportation Company; 299th Service and Support Company; 419th Transportation Company; 438th Military Police Detachment; 786th Quartermaster Company, 854th Quartermaster Company, 872nd Maintenance Company and 889th Transportation Detachment.

Maj. Gen. Peter Cooke thanked the reservists for their sacrifice and commitment. He urged them to share that commitment with others as they go about their normal lives.

"The question is: How bad does America love liberty?" Cooke asked. "I challenge you to remind people of your service, to remind them of how much you love liberty, to remind them that America is at war against terrorism, and if we don't stop it, who will?"

Megan Arzola appreciated that challenge.

"There are so many people that are against the war and don't know why people are going over," she said. "It's to protect us. We need to remind people that we're doing this for them."

For Lt. Col. Robert Brekke, of the 438th Military Police Detachment, the recognition and tokens meant a lot.

The Bozeman, Mont., man left behind a 10-year-old son and family auto-parts business to spend a year in Kuwait, where he helped enforce U.S. and Kuwaiti laws among U.S. forces.

"It's nice to know other people appreciate what we did," he said, "that we give up quite a bit when we're deployed."

rlynn@sltrib.com