Some of these men had not seen each other since they came back last month. After spending 14 months together they were reunited again, and there was a closeness, a sort of brotherhood, that could be felt in the room.

The New Leipzig Town and Country Booster and the American Legion Auxiliary clubs of New Leipzig and Elgin hosted a free roast beef dinner on Saturday night to honor 20 soldiers from Grant County who returned from Iraq in February. The men were from the North Dakota National Guard's 141st Engineer Combat Battalion.

"You don't think you'll miss something until its gone, and then you come back and realize how good it was," 1st Sgt. Keith Hertz said about being back home in Elgin. "It's nice and safe here, and we just enjoy being back. This is a nice welcome-home for all of us."

More than 400 family members and friends waited for the soldiers to enter the banquet room. They were greeted by a standing ovation and stood modestly before the crowd, who cheered and took pictures of their local heroes.

"When you have 20 soldiers from a small rural community that came back, you want to do something special for them," said Carrie Roth, an organizer for the event. "One year for our town parade, the World War II vets were the parade marshals, and they were so honored. They never had a party when they returned home. So why should we wait so long to welcome these guys back home?"

The soldiers received T-shirts and feasted on 240 pounds of roast beef before watching a patriotic video made for them by K-Hook. The group also celebrated the local American Legion Auxiliary club's birthday and Staff Sgt. Rob Hertz's 31st birthday.

Alex Roth, 12, from Bismarck, was just glad to have Santa Claus back.

For as long as Alex could remember, Spc. Tim Kallis had been Santa every year for the Roth family on Christmas. Kallis started the tradition when he was only 14 years old. He is now 25.

"I like kids, and it's hard to find a Santa around small towns," Kallis said.

The 141st was to be deployed in December of last year, and the Roth family thought they would have to find a new Santa, but Kallis refused. So last year he was Santa on Dec. 25 and three days later he was deployed to Iraq.

Now Kallis is glad to be back home with his family in New Leipzig.

The 141st is trained to lay mine fields and dig tank ditches. Instead, they were trailblazing, looking for roadside bombs and other exploding devices.

"Some days we lived minute by minute, not day by day, or even hour by hour," he said.

"You can't explain the emotions you go through," said Connie Kallis, his mom. "As a parent, you think you've been through everything, but nothing could compare to the past 14 months."

Kallis usually was able to contact his family two or three times a month, but there were times when the family didn't hear from him for three months.

"We had an idea of what he was doing over there, but we were never quite sure," his sister, Carrie Duppong, said. "We would always hear things on the news, but we never knew if it was him until he would call. Eventually, I stopped watching the news because if something would happen to him, I knew somebody would call."

Kallis will return to work next week as a welder at Sturdy's in Carson, and looks forward to his next National Guard drill weekend. It will be different talking about people's families instead of war, he said.

"Over there, everybody was brothers, dads or grandfathers," Kallis said. "The older took care of the younger, and the older took care of the younger below them, and so on. You just don't see 18-year-olds carrying guns anywhere else. It's something you just don't see."

Spirits were high Saturday night, but everyone took a few moments of silence for the soldiers that could not be there during a prayer before supper. A poster hung on the wall with pictures of the four soldiers from the 141st killed - Spc. Philip Brown, Staff Sgt. Lance J. Koenig, Spc. Cody Wentz and Spc. James Holmes. Three pictures of fallen soldiers from the 957th Multi-Role Bridge Company also were on the poster.

When asked if Kallis had a different perspective about life now that he was back home, all he said was, "Freedom don't come free, and don't take things for granted."

(Reach reporter Kayla Cogdill at 250-8251 or kaylacogdill@bismarcktribune.net.)