SURPRISE!

Some 3d ID soldiers return home.

But most don't...not yet anyway.

Army Staff Sgt. Joaquin Bethea stepped off the bus after arriving home from Iraq and found himself staring at a tiny twin - his 7-year-old daughter, Maiya, dressed in fatigues just like his.

Bethea had seen his wife, Leasha, and daughter barely three months in the past year and a half.

Still, when he and 600 fellow soldiers from the 24th Corps Support Group returned from Iraq late Saturday, he couched his excitement with a nod to the thousands of troops remaining overseas.

"I don't want to say it's my time" to come home, said Bethea, 27, as he arrived at a Fort Stewart gymnasium echoing with cheering friends and families. "But I've been gone a long time."

A total of 900 Fort Stewart soldiers arriving Saturday and Sunday this Fourth of July weekend, the biggest homecoming yet for the Army's 3rd Infantry Division that led the charge to Baghdad.

But the majority of the 16,500 division troops sent to fight the war remains in Iraq serving as peacekeepers, rebuilding war-damaged cities and hunting down Iraqi fighters who remain loyal to Saddam Hussein.