The scene yesterday morning at Bangor International Airport could have been any small-city departure lounge, what with the coin-operated television chairs, the industrial carpet, the coffee shop selling plastic-wrapped factory-made breakfast pastries — but for the fact that in one corner, a couple of dozen representatives of a local American Legion post milled around a table of cookies with a few handheld American flags. Then the loudspeaker announced that the plane full of troops returning from Iraq had just landed. The crowd of Maine locals stirred toward the Jetway in a ragged line, peering for a sign of motion. As the first Marines in their boots clopped down the ramp into the airport, applause rang out.

An informal receiving line was formed, with the civilians shaking hands with the G.I.s. “Thank you,” the civilians said over and over. “Welcome home,” they said. A boom-box someone had brought played “God Bless America.” And to the line of greeters were added, gradually, some ordinary travelers who felt the call to join in the impromptu patriotic ceremony. The troops coming home shook hands with, even sometimes hugged the civilians, thanking them for their time. Upon being welcomed home, one exclaimed, “It’s a great place.” The Marines, clad in desert camouflage fatigues, were younger — and some shorter and slighter — than they look on television or in the newspaper photographs of them in battle dress. A few were older, clearly distinguishable as officers by their insignia. They were of all races, and there were women among them. The applause came in bursts with each new clump of Marines making their way off the plane.

The American intervention in Iraq was just and necessary. It is not yet over. But shaking hands with the arriving troops in the airport terminal yesterday and watching them as they fanned out for the airport bar and the bank of pay phones, we were reminded that the greatness of our nation’s military might lies not only in its high-technology weapons but in its individual fighting men and women, in all their human bravery and vulnerability, innocence and strength.