Aurora ready to welcome home Marine

For the past week, Nancy Ramos hasn't slept well.

The Aurora mom has tossed and turned each night, imagining the moment she'll finally be able to hug her son, Lance Cpl. Noah Ramos, again.

After the 2005 death of his brother, Lance Cpl. Hector Ramos, she knows Noah's return today is nothing short of a miracle.

"It's a blessing," she said. "I worry, because I'm a mother, but I know he's alive and he's coming home!"

Noah, 24, is expected to be back in Aurora this afternoon for the first time in three years after finishing his first tour of duty in Iraq.

He's expected to be escorted to his alma mater, East Aurora High School, about 3:30 p.m., where he'll be welcomed by city and school officials.

He'll then visit his brother's memorial at the school's Serenity Garden. Hector was 21 at the time of his death in a helicopter crash in Iraq.

Noah, who was injured this past summer but has since re-covered, enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2004. He plans to return for his second tour in a month.

As kids, Hector and Noah always talked of enlisting in the Marines, Nancy said. After Hector died, Nancy told Noah it was his choice to continue serving.

"I told him he wasn't less or more of a men if he stayed or went," she said.

He chose to stay.

"My brother did not die for me to quit," Noah Ramos said at his brother's funeral.

The Ramos brothers have another sibling, Isiah, 15. Both he and Nancy, who works at Oak Park Elementary School in East Aurora District 131, couldn't concentrate this morning.

"I'm so excited!" she said. "I'm ready to get out of here."

Late last night, she heard the phone ring. "I was like, Please let it be him!'" she said. "It was. He heard me screaming. He was just chuckling."

The family has big plans for tonight.

"Hugging (Noah) until his eyes pop out," Nancy said, "and making him his favorite dish -- enchiladas and rice."