WHITING | All smiles and flags, downtown looked like Independence Day on Monday as hundreds of well-wishers welcomed home a local soldier wounded in Operation Enduring Freedom.
A visibly moved Spc. Daniel Acosta Jr., leaning lightly on a cane to ease the pressure on legs injured when his detail was rammed by a suicide bomber at the gate of Camp Eggers outside Kabul, Afghanistan, surveyed the crowd from the steps of City Hall.
"Thanks for showing support for our guys who are still over there," said Acosta, 30, who lost a National Guard comrade in the January attack, with three others wounded. "We're the greatest nation in the world because of people like you."
The Whiting High School band played "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" as the motorcade thundered up 119th Street, led by the Northwest Indiana Patriot Guard, which escorted a donated limousine for Acosta and his family from O'Hare International Airport.
Acosta's 11-year-old daughter, Vicki, read a proclamation by Mayor Joe Stahura honoring his bravery and self-sacrifice in service to his community.
His wife of 12 years, Mayra, said the soft-spoken volunteer girls softball coach was "overwhelmed" by all the attention -- even at the airport, where representatives with American Legion Posts 80 and 168 met his plane from overseas, and police and fire departments from Illinois and Indiana joined his convey home.
Just two years in the National Guard, Acosta and his 634th Brigade Support Battalion, based in Joliet, were called up last August for a 13-month tour.
Shortly after 6 a.m. Jan. 17, while providing security for deliveries to Camp Eggers along with U.S. Army and Afghan soldiers, an armored SUV slammed into a fuel truck and exploded, injuring seven, one fatally.
Now on the mend, though still facing months of physical therapy, Acosta's thoughts still were with his fellow guardsmen on duty as he shook a seemingly endless stream of hands inside a City Hall conference room.
"I hope everybody gets this sort of reception when they come home," he said.
Happy to be back in the "great community of Whiting," Acosta said moving to the city was the best decision he ever made -- good for his family and good for his daughter.
In the days ahead, Acosta said he wants to keep up with the therapy to rebuild his body, and finish his college degree in criminal justice.
