Fort Riley ? Music, live video updates and a smoke machine punctuated the celebration as families packed into a Fort Riley building Friday to welcome loved ones home from war.

The pep-rally atmosphere was in full swing before dawn, hours earlier than expected. The planes carrying 350 soldiers from the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division hadn’t made a scheduled layover and instead headed straight to Topeka’s Forbes Field.

Families clearly didn’t mind.

“We had 100 people at 5 a.m.,” said Sgt. Damon Jamison, who hosted the event with Sgt. Chris Conyers. “They were ready for it. They deserved it. It was electric and they went nuts.”

The homecoming was for the first of several large groups from the 3,800-soldier brigade scheduled to return in the next few weeks. The brigade has been in Iraq since fall 2008, seeing the security duties shift from U.S. forces to Iraqis.