About 300 Marines and sailors with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment returned to their base at Kaneohe Bay this morning after a seven-month deployment to a violent southwestern Afghanistan.

Sabrina Kachurka, who was reunited with her husband, Lance Cpl. Eric Kachurka, 21, summed up what just about every family member was thinking.
“It’s really a great feeling (that he’s back),” Sabrina Kachurka said. “Just knowing where he was and the danger he was in — it was crazy. It’s just really exciting, overwhelming.”
When she spotted her husband coming off the charter Omni Air International jet, she ran down the red carpet and jumped into his arms.
The couples’ first wedding anniversary was earlier this month, and it was Eric Kachurka’s first deployment as a Marine.
The "Island Warriors" were greeted by several hundred friends and family members in Hangar 105 at the Marine Corps base as a band played and tears of joy flowed.
The battalion of about 1,000 Marines and sailors was deployed to Helmand and Farah provinces in its first combat tour of Afghanistan since 2006.
The unit left Hawaii in May and was part of a surge of 21,000 extra U.S. troops ordered to an increasingly restive Afghanistan by President Obama. Other groups will be returning in coming days.
Hawaii Marines battled insurgents amongst the poppy fields, orchards and walled compounds of southern Helmand province.
Capt. Zachary Martin, the commander of Golf Company, said his Marines were involved in 15 to 20 major engagements that lasted several hours, involved up to 40 to 50 enemy fighters, and required U.S. helicopter or jet ground support.
“Well over a dozen” Purple Hearts for battlefield injuries will be awarded, he said.
Eight Marines and a Navy corpsman with the 2nd Battalion were killed on the deployment.
Chris Brummitt, an Associated Press reporter who was with Golf Company in the village of Now Zad, said by the end of June improvised explosive devices had killed one Marine and wounded seven — with four Marines losing both legs.
Another 1,000 Hawaii Marines with the 1st Battalion will be leaving for Afghanistan in about two weeks, but they will not deploy to the same area as the 2nd Battalion, officials said.