Capt. Derocchi and his wife Melissa arrived at the Trinity Episcopal Church on High Street. Red, white and blue balloons lined the street from the center of town to the church.

The Girl Scouts have been sending care packages to U.S. soldiers for 2½ years. It started with a small group project of making cookies and sending them to the troops in Kuwait. When the war broke out in Iraq, the Scouts were informed they could no longer mail care packages to "any soldier" and that they needed a specific contact.

The husband of troop leader Sharon Midgley works for Welch Fluorocarbon. Company employees had been sending boxes to Derocchi, the brother of an employee who had died in a motorcycle accident. The Scouts were thrilled to have a contact. The owner of the company, Evan Welch, offered to pay the shipping charges for any care packages sent.

The Scouts made it their mission to have all 12 of the Girl Scout members collect enough items from friends or relatives to fill five boxes each, making the goal 70 care packages. The first care package went out in March 2003 and the next in July, with another in October, with the hope the packages would arrive in time for Christmas.

Derocchi sent pictures through his dad and Welch Fluorocarbon of the "opening of the Christmas boxes." Scouts said it was moving to see the packages in their hands.

Derocchi also expressed a desire to visit Troop 2206 when he returned home, and arrangements were made through his mother Suzanne Derocchi, a Lee resident.

The girls decorated the church hall and had a big "Welcome Home our Hero, Mark" cake, a scrapbook to present of the highlights of sending the care packages over the last year and a personal note from each of them.

Derocchi turned the tables on the girls, making them the heroes, "the voices from home that touched so many soldiers in Iraq." He presented an hourlong slide show of his journey and patiently answered questions. He showed them pieces of marble from some of the palaces in Iraq.

He asked each of them to come up to him individually and tell him her name; he thanked them and then he gave each one of them an Iraqi dollar as a memento. He said he was glad to be home, and happy to see his wife, parents and the Girl Scouts.

He told of friends who are still there, and gave the name of a new soldier to mail packages to. The troop was working on wrapping the packages at that April 1 meeting. They went out to Iraq the beginning of the next week, and mail has already been received from some grateful soldiers who were the recipients.