The team of North Dakota National Guard soldiers that stayed in Afghanistan to ensure a smooth mission transition is back in the United States.

The 29 soldiers landed at Fort Lewis, Wash., late Wednesday, where they were reunited with their 188th Air Defense Artillery Security Forces unit. The bulk of the unit - 115 soldiers - touched down in Washington last week.

The 188th has been on active duty since December 2005. It provided security patrols, border protection and humanitarian aide in Afghanistan. The unit left the theater last week, but the transition team stayed behind to hand over the mission to another unit. Those 29 soldiers will return to Bismarck within a week.

Meanwhile, the rest of the unit will fly into town Friday. A specially chartered plane is scheduled to touch down at 12:20 p.m. at the Bismarck airport. The 47 Bismarck-area soldiers will get to stay home; the plane will then carry the remaining soldiers to Grand Forks, where the unit has its headquarters.

The Security Forces soldiers were credited with completing more than 1,200 missions, which included training Afghan Border Police and the Afghan National Police Forces, as well as medical treatment of more than 2,500 Afghan citizens. The soldiers delivered food that helped feed more than 5,000 families last winter, according to the Guard.