Retired firefighter on short leave from Iraq (Lanny Wong)

ROCKFORD -- A retired Rockford firefighter returns home after 8 months in Iraq. Thursday was a welcome back gathering for Lanny Wong. He says he was lucky to be surrounded by friends on his birthday, but he's just home on leave. He still has four more months overseas.

For Lanny Wong, the chance to catch up with friends is not something he takes for granted. The 54-year old former firefighter has two weeks to soak up Rockford before he heads back to war. "There's a constant threat of danger because where I'm at is 12 miles north of Baghdad and I get an intelligence report everyday and we get prob 3-5 IED's, improvised explosive devices, that are discovered and some of them are detonated on our patrols. You hear explosions in the distance. You don't know if it's a controlled detonated or an actual mortar round or a suicide bomber and that's an everyday thing over there."

Read the rest at WREX 13

Note: Due to problems with blogger we were unable to post news of deployments and returns for the last 10 days. This post is part of the update from that period.