By Kathy Adams and Matthew Jones
NORFOLK
Standing on a crowded pier at Norfolk Naval Station on Wednesday, 5-year-old Sydni Funderburk strained to spot one sailor among the hundreds arriving.
"Lift me up, because I can't see my mom!" she yelled, pulling on the hand of her grandmother Debra Martin.

NORFOLK When the Truman carrier strike group arrives home this morning, its nearly 7,500 sailors will begin a much deserved rest. The group spent the past seven months supporting ground troops in Iraq, watching pirates off the Horn of Africa, guarding oil platforms in the Persian Gulf and training with multiple navies from the west coast of Africa to the Black Sea.

VIRGINIA BEACH

Lt. Cmdr. Justin Rubino hurried from his F/A-18C Hornet on Saturday, embraced his wife, Julie, for the first time in seven months and stepped back.

Then he put his hand on her nine-months-pregnant belly and greeted his child, who the doctor sa ys is poised to enter the world any day.

“Glad you stayed in there!” Rubino said.

 
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