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Nichole Merkt (R), kisses her husband Spc. Jake Merkt as they and others celebrate during a welcome home ceremony for U.S. Army troops returning from Afghanistan on July 9, 2011 in Fort Carson, Colorado. Some 530 soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team were to arrived over the weekend, the last major element of the brigade to return from a year of heavy fighting against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province.