"SOLDIERS BLEW KISSES IN IRAQ"

A disturbing headline, but a great story.

Army Spc. Marsha Sage never expected to see her husband on the road to Baghdad. But there he was: blowing kisses at her from a passing tank.

"That was something I'll never forget," said the 23-year-old Sage, one of about 300 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division soldiers who returned Thursday to Fort Benning.

Her husband, Spc. Ian Sage, a communications specialist with 2nd Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment, a tank battalion, returned earlier this week. He embraced his wife on American soil for the first time in seven months.

The two talked about the chance encounter on the road outside Nasiriyah the day after the war began.

"A tire fell off my Humvee -- I mean it just fell off -- and I was on the road fixing it," said Marsha Sage, a mechanic with the brigade's 317th Engineer Battalion. "The 2-69 was passing by and I waved at a sergeant. He radioed my husband and he rolled by later blowing kisses at me."