Last Seabees Return Home to Port Hueneme : War’s aftermath: The final contingent is met with a spirited welcome by 450 well-wishers. ‘It is absolutely awesome to be home,’ one sailor said.

After a long journey from war to peace, the last group of Port Hueneme Seabees returned home Thursday evening to a spirited welcome.

The 190 Seabees arrived from Saudi Arabia about 6:20 p.m. on the windy naval airstrip at Point Mugu. The group was the first to ship out of the Naval Construction Battalion Center when the crisis in the Persian Gulf began in August.

“It feels good to be home,” said Scott McMahan, 24, of Anaheim. “I prayed that God would take care of us, and he did.”

Seabee Denny Connor, 20, of Pennsylvania paused on the Tarmac and clutched his month-old baby, Mariah, who was born while he was away.

“She’s so beautiful,” Connor said. “I don’t want to let her go.”

As the sailors made their way from the airstrip to the Port Hueneme base, they were cheered by about 450 well-wishers who had lined up along the street to wave flags and show their support.

“This is the least we could do for these guys,” said Ray Komar of Oxnard. “They’ve made us proud.”

Grace Baskin, a well-wisher from Ventura, added: “It makes me feel good to be here. My fiancee was killed in Vietnam. This is like the homecoming he never got.”

For eight months, the Seabee engineers and construction teams built reinforced tents, hospitals, runways and other facilities for Marines stationed in Saudi Arabia.

“We literally took a piece of sand and built a 15,000-man city,” said Lt. Cmdr. Brian Kelm, who was in charge of the battalion that returned Thursday from the Gulf. “It was a totally different place.”

While the crisis proved to be a waiting game in the sand for some units, the Seabees were rarely able to take a break, Kelm said.

“We didn’t do any sitting around,” he said. “We went right to work.”

Kelm said about 50 of the sailors traveled into Kuwait, where they helped repair airfields. The war ended before the rest of the 600-man battalion--located about 15 miles from the Kuwaiti border--was able to join them.

At one time during the Gulf crisis, 1,800 Seabees from the Port Hueneme base were serving in the Middle East.

The sailors have come home a group at a time over the past few weeks. On Wednesday morning, 300 came home.

For now the Seabees will perform duties on the base, said base spokeswoman Connie Taylor.

Taylor said the base has been bustling with excitement.

“Everyone is happy to have them back,” she said. “And it’s unusual to have so many at the base at one time.”

Normally only one battalion of 600 is at the base while the others are away on missions. Three battalions now are at Port Hueneme.

But that will change soon, Taylor said. One group is scheduled to leave for Okinawa in June. Another group will go to Spain in October.

Military officials have not announced where the group that returned Thursday is going next.

For now, Scott McMahan is content to stay put.

“I just want to sleep and eat a real meal,” he said.

“It is absolutely awesome to be home,” said Joe Lara, a 26-year-old Seabee from Camarillo. “It was a unique and challenging experience.”

Lara’s father, Eric, a Seabee captain who remained at the base during the war to help coordinate efforts, said he is proud of his son.

“He was ready to go and he did what he had to do.”