Landen Long-Mata holds an American flag while awaiting a reunion with his mother, Pfc. Sunnie Mata, during a 54th Quartermaster Company redeployment ceremony Nov. 25 at the Post Field House. Forty-four members of the mortuary affairs unit were cheer...

Lateisha Brown-Ransom holds up a sign to welcome her husband, Sgt. Jarrett Ransom, home Nov. 25 at the Post Field House. Ransom was one of 44 members of the 54th Quartermaster Company who were celebrated at a redeployment ceremony after completing a...

FORT LEE, Va. (Nov. 26, 2013) -- Forty-four Fort Lee Soldiers are home to celebrate the holidays with family and friends.

The group, members of the 54th Quartermaster Company, spent six months at locations in Southwest Asia, returning to the installation Monday via cheers, hugs and kisses during a redeployment ceremony at the Post Field House.

A crowd of roughly 250 family members, friends and fellow Soldiers were on hand to greet the returnees during the evening ceremony. It included members of the installation leadership and Special Troops Battalion, 82nd Sustainment Brigade, the unit's higher headquarters located at Fort Bragg, N.C.

The 54th, one of only two active duty mortuary affairs units in the Army, performed mortuary missions in Kuwait and Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. As such, it is assigned deployments on a rotational basis with its sister unit, the 111th QM Co., also based here.