If you know Teri Brandt, then you know she jingles.

It's not loud, really. But it's there.

It's there when she's walking down the corridors at Medcenter One, where she works as a nurse. It's there when she reaches into the fridge for some milk. It's there when she gets up in the morning to let her three dogs outside.

The jingle has been there for more than a year.

And it's about to go away.

For 15 months, Brandt has worn her son's dogtags around her neck, along with the cross she gave him for his confirmation eight years ago. The jingling has been a constant reminder - as if she needed one - of his presence in her life. And out of it.

Spc. B.J. Brandt has been in Iraq with the North Dakota National Guard's 141st Engineer Combat Battalion since last February. The unit left North Dakota in December of 2003.

Now the soldiers are coming home.

Brandt, 23, will be among 89 soldiers from the unit that return to the state today. The soldiers' flight is scheduled to land in Bismarck at 3:45 p.m. Forty-two of them will get off the plane here, and the rest will continue on to Fargo.

The remainder of the 141st - about 385 soldiers - will return in the coming weeks.

"It's almost surreal," Teri Brandt said. "For so long, the months just dragged by. Now it's all happening so fast. He's home, he's home!"

The jingling reminders Brandt has worn around her neck every minute of every day have not been an albatross. They've been much lighter and more cheery. Like symbols of hope.

"Sometimes I'd wake up and his name was pressed into my shoulder," Brandt said. "It just made me feel good to know they were there while he was gone. Now I can take them off."

Brandt was a rear gunner on the Task Force Trailblazer missions performed by the 141st. The unit cleared more than 300 bombs from roadsides in north-central Iraq. It traveled more than 250,000 miles, and took enemy fire.

Three soldiers from the unit - Spc. Philip Brown, Staff Sgt. Lance J. Koenig and Spc. Cody Wentz - were killed in action. Spc. James Holmes died from wounds received in action.

B.J. Brandt's 13-year-old sister, Emily, said the homecoming is bittersweet.

"You feel good that he's coming back, and you feel bad for the other families whose soldiers aren't coming back," Emily Brandt said. "For us, it's like a big weight off our shoulders."

Emily's brother will be home in time to watch her figure-skating competition in Fargo this weekend. She'll do one routine to a song from "Veggie Tales" and another to the Village People's "Macho Man." She's excited to show her brother the boxing moves she learned for the second number.

Emily Brandt tied new yellow ribbons to the trees in the front yard of their Bismarck home Monday afternoon, and helped her mom hang a welcome-home banner. Underneath the new ribbons, the tattered old ones they hung 15 months ago still flap in the breeze. Time and five seasons of sunshine have bleached the old ribbons white.

And then there's the jingling. After 15 months, it ends today.

The silence will be filled by the voices of a mother, son and daughter, reunited at last.