Elk Grove Village Marine gets warm welcome home

Editor's note: This story was originally published on Nov. 11, 2007.

They whistled and clapped and jostled for handshakes as their American flags danced their own staccato salutation in the November wind.

And on the eve of Veterans Day, as they surprised a U.S. Marine with a homecoming party heavy on patriotism, the black leather-clad members of the motorcycling Patriot Guard Riders teared up.

Even tough guys can cry, it seems, when they're tasked with welcoming back a hero.

"We get all misty-eyed," said Addison resident Andrew Regal, one of about 60 Guardsmen who gathered Saturday afternoon at the Des Plaines Oasis to salute Lance Cpl. Jeremy Sears as he returned home from Iraq. "We're never short on tears."

Sears, who was picked up at O'Hare International Airport by his dad and brought to the oasis under the guise of needing gas, emerged from the car to a throng of Guardsmen, family and friends - among them, his 99-year-old grandpa, who'd flown in from Texas.

Amid calls of "thank you," his mother's voice rang out clearly:"That's my boy!"

Sears embraced his mom, lifting her feet off the ground.

"I can't even see out of my glasses, they're so full of tears,"his mother, Kathy, said later. "It's awesome."

Her son, who completed a seven-month tour in Iraq, used the same word to describe how it felt to be back.

"It's incredible," he said.

From the oasis, a procession of police and flag-toting, horn-honking motorcycling Guardsmen led the way to Sears' dad's home, heading west on the Northwest Tollway and down Arlington Heights Road before turning onto a yellow-ribbon lined Elk Grove Village street.

More well-wishers waited there, tears in their eyes and cameras in their hands.

"It's good to have him home," said Sears' sister, Valerie, who guessed she'd taken at least 200 pictures of her soldier sibling. "It's hard not to see your brother."

Sears, 28, enlisted in the Marines about three years ago, in the midst of the Iraq War.

"He knew this was his calling," his friend Darren Slowiak of Wood Dale said. "The kid was born to do this. If I ever meet a better Marine than he is, I'd be shocked."

The tour Sears just finished was his second. He'd already completed an earlier seven-month stint that took him to Iraq and the Philippines.

The U.S. soldiers still overseas "are all my brothers," Sears said, smiling. "And they're all doing awesome."

He and his wife, Tami, now live in Carlsbad, Calif., but Sears said Elk Grove Village, where he was born and raised - he attended Conant High School - is his real home.

Still, Sears' dad, Rick, said his son had a tough time accepting that all the hubbub really was in his honor.

"He said, 'I can't believe it's all for me,' " Rick Sears said afterward. "I said, 'They appreciate what you're doing.' "

That's absolutely true, said Ted Estrup of Carol Stream, a neighbor of Sears' mother who said the homecoming party gave him goose bumps.

He said he feels it's "an honor" to know a soldier, no matter your political views.

The Patriot Guard, a group of motorcycle enthusiasts formed originally to support families at funerals for fallen soldiers, regularly partakes in welcome-home efforts, too.

Such celebrations are done at the request of the family.