FORT DRUM — A drive along Route 26 near Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield will be more colorful this week — and not because of the fall leaves.

Spouses of 1st Brigade Combat Team soldiers came out in force over the long weekend to decorate the fence along the road with banners, yellow ribbons and plastic cups.

“It’s exciting. My children are the most excited,” said Linda N. Yampanis, whose husband, Staff Sgt. Matthew J. Yampanis, is with Headquarters and Headquarters Company and will be home in the next week. “They will want to make sure he’s really here. They’ll play and hug and just want to talk to him. If he goes to the store, they will want to go to the store. They won’t want to be away from him.”

Mrs. Yampanis and her husband have been married for 10 years and this is their third deployment. It is her tradition to create a sign for him that says “My Hansimyi,” an endearing nickname she gave him when they met and married in Korea more than 10 years ago, when they were both on active duty in the Army.

“It gives me a different perspective than a new, young wife who has never had anything to do with the military,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it makes it any easier.”

She noted she is not the first Army wife to have previous military service. She also said this deployment has not been much different from others, despite the fact it was three months longer.

“It’s what changed here that makes it different,” she said. “What they do over there is pretty stationary, but what happens back home is never the same.”

Susan B. Paschal, wife of Col. David G. Paschal, the commander of 1st Brigade, echoed that sentiment.

“This time the deployment has been different because my children are grown up and not here. That’s about it, though,” she said as she helped other wives of HHC soldiers pull cups through the chain-link fence along Route 26.

The wives spelled out “Welcome Home 1st BCT” and constructed a yellow ribbon. They joked that if their husbands were to return on an early morning flight, before the sun was out, they would bring them to the field during daylight hours so their hard work didn’t go to waste.

Mrs. Paschal and her husband have been married for 25 years. She recalls at least six deployments, but has lost count of the total over the years.

“I remember when they used to be gone for six months at a time,” she said. “Geez, that seems so short, thinking about it now.”

The 3,500 soldiers with the 1st Brigade are expected to be home before Thanksgiving after a 15-month deployment to Kirkuk, Iraq. Last week, nearly 300 soldiers returned to Fort Drum as part of the advance party that prepares for the return of the majority of the brigade.