Staff photo by Angela Lewis
Honor guard members carry the body of First Sgt. John “Gooch” Blair from a plane at Tom B. David Airport this morning.

CALHOUN, Ga. -- A steady breeze flicked a wall of red, white and blue flags down a standing line of friends, soldiers and others, all waiting to honor the sacrifice of a fallen soldier.

Hundreds gathered Monday morning at Tom B. Davis Airport to watch the return of the body of 1st Sgt. John Blair, killed June 20 in a firefight in Afghanistan.

Once the flag-draped coffin was unloaded from the plane, 1st Sgt. Blair's wife, Donna, walked with her adult son Dallas, daughter Georgia and grandson Nolyn to lay a hand on the casket that carried her husband home.

A seven-man military honor team quietly carried 1st Sgt. Blair's body to an 18-wheeler, its flatbed trailer decked in black cloth and yellow ribbons, ready to transport the special cargo through Calhoun to Trinity Baptist Church, where the body will lie until burial Wednesday at the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton.

First Sgt. Bryan Hise, head of the military honor team for the Georgia National Guard, said the Blair family requested the flatbed trailer in place of a hearse because soldiers returning to the area in 2005 used the same kind of trailer. At the time, 1st Sgt. Blair said that's how he'd want to celebrate a homecoming.

Granting that wish, soldiers walked in tight steps, carrying the first sergeant's casket to its place on the low trailer bed -- coffin always held level, the stars of the flag-draped coffin pointed forward.

"We move him as he walks -- feet first," 1st Sgt. Hise said.

On Monday morning, hundreds of well-wishers assembled along the route through Calhoun, honoring the soldier and former Gordon County Sheriff's Department deputy.

There are quicker ways to drive from the airport to Trinity Baptist than the five-mile path through downtown Calhoun. But those routes would not have taken 1st Sgt. Blair past those gathered in clusters along the road with signs saying "Our hero" or "God Bless."

Other routes might not have let a father hold his child, perched atop shoulders, to see the casket roll past or see the soldier standing guard over his fallen comrade on the truck's trailer.

Long before the procession was in sight, soldiers lined up in the parking lot of Trinity Baptist under a cloudless blue sky, ready for the first sergeant's arrival.

The delivery went quickly, and after the honor team carried the casket into the church, family and friends gathered in the church lobby. After the crowd dispersed, Chris Adams and John Halcomb stood outside the church swapping stories about their friend.

The three men grew up together in Cumberland, Ky., where the first sergeant joined the Kentucky National Guard between his junior and senior years in high school in 1989.

"He had the heart of an elephant and the attitude of a lion," Mr. Halcomb said. He called 1st Sgt. Blair "my brother, my last brother."

Staff Sgt. David Eberhart, who served with 1st Sgt. Blair in Company A of the Guard's 48th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Division, said that, from the start, the first sergeant cared for his soldiers and loved to lead.

"He was an intense kind of guy," Staff Sgt. Eberhart said.

When he and other soldiers heard about the first sergeant's death they didn't believe it, the staff sergeant said, especially since it was reported that 1st Sgt. Blair was firing from the gunner's turret of his vehicle during a firefight near Mado Zayi, Afghanistan.

"That's not typical of a first sergeant. Usually they're in the vehicle," Staff Sgt. Eberhart said. "It was just how he liked to lead."