Cheers, All Around

At home, Kleinhenz's wife told him she had a surprise. On the kitchen table were presents. Not Christmas gifts, his wife told him, but welcome-home presents: sweaters and long-sleeve shirts, clothes to keep him warm. After several months in the Middle East, she figured, he would need some winter clothing.

Army Capt. Garrett Slaughter, going to his parents' home in Chevy Chase, called the welcome at BWI a "Christmas gift."

"I wasn't expecting this at all," he said. "It's pretty cool."

Home from Afghanistan, he was eager to be with family for the holidays. After three deployments, one to Iraq and two to Afghanistan, "this will be one of the first Christmases I've had with my family in a long time," he said. But he was most eager to see his fiancee -- they are getting married on New Year's Eve in Richmond.

Davis, the Navy lieutenant, had thought the emotional part of returning was going to be surprising his two daughters for Christmas at home in Tampa. But getting the celebrity treatment at BWI "almost brought tears to my eyes," he said. "I was just trying to stay strong."

He originally was not supposed to arrive home until Dec. 30. But his flight was moved up. When he told his wife that he would be home for Christmas, "she started screaming into the phone," he said.

They made a pact to surprise their 19- and 12-year-old daughters. Davis's wife told the girls they were going to the airport to pick up their grandmother.

So when Davis walked off the plane late Monday in Tampa, daughters Jazmine and Jayda were ecstatic, he said.

"They saw me before I saw them," he said later. They came running through the terminal "and almost knocked me down," he said. "It was great."