Elementary students lined up outside Douglass Elementary School shortly after lunch Wednesday afternoon to welcome home a local hero.

Picture Right: SPC Tyler Tippet returns home to family and friends waiting at his home

Specialist E-4 in the US Army Tyler Tippet returned home from a year long deployment to friends and family and a crowd of school children lining the streets outside Douglas School on Washington Street. SPC Tippet says getting a police escort to his home was "the greatest feeling in the world".

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As Tippet returned escorted by all the emergency services of the County, SPC Tippet says it made him realize everything he was fighting for and called everything he had gone through in the last year worth it.

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SPC Tippet was stationed at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for nine months. He called his assignment "was difficult" and "it was a very long nine months".

He says it is really good to know the community is looking out for the veterans and active service men and women of the community.