Photos: Alaska families welcome soldiers home from Kuwait

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Briana Granger, left, and Kelly Curtis, with their children Londen Granger, 1, and Julani Curtis, 4, look for their husbands in a live video feed from the Elmendorf side of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016. Their husbands, soldiers with the 109th Transportation Company, were returning home from service in Kuwait. (Loren Holmes / Alaska Dispatch News)

About 125 soldiers from the 109th Transportation Company returned home to friends and family in Anchorage on Thursday, after serving nine months in Kuwait.

Anchorage's first significant snow of the season fell on the soldiers as they stepped off buses and into the Buckner Physical Fitness Building on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Spouses and children waited enthusiastically for their soldiers to be released by the company commander, and when the time came, they rushed onto the floor to greet them.

The 109th, nicknamed the muleskinners, had been deployed in support of operation Inherent Resolve, transporting supplies and troops around Kuwait. Inherent Resolve is the name for the campaign that aims to defeat the self-proclaimed Islamic State.