Community gathers to welcome soldier home

Maricopa welcomed home a 20-year-old Army soldier Friday with a surprise celebration of friends, family and community members after nine months of service in Afghanistan.

Pvt. 1st Class Coral Heazlit, a 2011 Maricopa High School graduate, was picked up at the airport by her mom, Wendy Heazlit, and a family friend, Debbie Huskey, who took her straight to the fire station where her dad was waiting.

“She started crying because her dad was there,” Huskey said.

A fire truck drove Heazlit home to the celebration where people lined the streets, held handmade signs, American flags and dressed in red to show their support.

“Thank you guys for coming and supporting me, I didn’t expect all of this,” Heazlit said to the crowd greeting her when she stepped out of the fire truck.

Both of her parents had tears in their eyes and couldn’t stop hugging their daughter.

“It’s unreal,” Wendy Heazlit said. “I didn’t even realize that this little town could do so much for one person.”

She said she has two sons, but Coral is the only girl.

“It’s a longtime coming,” Wendy Heazlit said. “Every day we Facebook message, we try to Skype when we can, we write letters, I send her care packages, but to see her in front of me, it’s like Christmas a hundred times.”

“You don’t even know how proud of her I am,” said dad Bill Heazlit. “When I saw her tonight I was bawling my eyes out.”

Blue Star Moms Lisa Durst and Tracy Davis, who organized the event, met Coral on Facebook while she was in Afghanistan and began sending her care packages. Blue Star is an organization of mothers with children in the military.

“At one point she said, ‘Don’t send me anymore packages’ because there were some boys who had never received any mail while they were there,” Durst said.

Heazlit told the crowd soldiers enjoy receiving packages from home.

“Just sending them letters or a care package with their favorite chips or something,” she said. “That definitely made my whole week when I got one package.”

Durst and Davis got to know the Heazlit family and, when they found out she was coming home, they asked if the Blue Star Moms would help them throw a community party to welcome her home.

“I’ve been talking to her the whole time she’s been gone and then, all of the sudden, I deleted her,” Durst said. “I didn’t want her to catch wind of what was going on.”

Councilwoman Julia Gusse, a veteran, also helped with the event and was there to welcome Heazlit home.

“It’s extremely meaningful,” Gusse said. “I know she’s going to cherish this and remember it forever.”