"I think it [Obama's decision] was one of the best ideas anyone has [had]," said Levy, 26. "To tell the truth, we really don't need to be there anymore."
Levy returned home to Levittown from Iraq in April 2009 and yesterday he did something he hadn't done since he was 10 - go to the zoo with his mother, Lynn.
"We try to use something to hook people in. What better than the Philadelphia Zoo?" said Dale Whitman, public affairs officer with the VA Medical Center in University City, which sponsored yesterday's Welcome Home event.
"The whole idea is to do the right thing by veterans and that's to tell them about their benefits," Whitman said, listing such perks as five years of free health care after leaving the service.
Eduardo Vega, 45, was especially interested in a VA-backed home loan and in help paying for college for his two youngest daughters.
The 19-year veteran, from Allentown, said that ending combat in Iraq was long overdue but that there's still more work to be done.
"We're seeing people shooting at our aircraft, the sky light up," Vega said. "That's something I'm never going to see again and never want to see again."
The daily toot-toot of car horns makes Vega think of a steaming Afghanistan desert more than eight years ago, when others in his unit would make that same sound to alert one another to don gas masks.
"It's nice to see everyone get back to their families," Vega said. "One minute you're alive, the next minute you're dead."
More than 4,400 troops were killed in Iraq and 30,000 injured.
But not all combat veterans support Obama's decision.
"I'm a little on the fence about it," said Ryan Klick, 21, of Phoenixville. "Their government is not really stepping up. My buddies are still going through stuff."
