ALDEN -- In Alden, It was a heart-warming homecoming for Staff Sergeant Joseph Baker, who just returned home from his second tour in Iraq.
“I got married right before our deployment so I’m thrilled to be home to my wife. We didn't get much of a honeymoon at all so we're just trying to spend as much time together as possible,” Baker said.
Baker’s wife said she could hardly control her emotions when she was reunited her husband.
“I was the first one out on the football field to hug him and hold him out of everyone,” said Candace Baker, Staff Sergeant Baker’s wife.
Monday Afternoon, Baker took part in the Alden Memorial Day parade and was honored at a ceremony afterward.
However, the Staff Sergeant says today was not about him. It’s about the men and women -- who did not make it home. “My last deployment we lost a mechanic…and it makes me think really hard about his family and what they have had to go through over the years since we lost him.”
Now that he is home, Baker said he looks forward to jumping back into the role of a firefighter.