On the evening of Feb. 1, a family waited patiently on the platform of the Lynbrook Long Island Rail Road station for the arrival of a train that would bring their son home from the war in Afghanistan. Army 1st Lt. Steven R. Liguori II, 25, a Lynbrook firefighter, was finally coming home after a year of deployment, followed by a short stay at the Fort Dix Army Hospital in New Jersey for treatment of an injury he suffered when insurgents attacked his base on Dec. 2, just before he was to return to the U.S.

That day, Liguori’s base, at Jalalabad Airfield, part of HQ, 427th Brigade Support Battalion, 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, was attacked by insurgents wearing suicide vests. They detonated their bombs but, luckily, no Americans were killed. While Liguori was leading his team to stop the intrusion, his left wrist was broken.

For the previous two weeks he had been assigned to the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Dix, while his injury was evaluated and treated. After his release, he began his journey home to Lynbrook.

The Liguori family paced the cold platform as Steven’s fellow firefighters and their fire truck, Tally-Ho Engine 3, waited at the curb below. Like his father, Liguori is a member of the Tally-Ho Fire Company in Lynbrook. A graduate of Chaminade High School, he joined the Lynbrook Fire Department as a junior member and became a firefighter in 2005. He went on to join ROTC while attending Fairfield University, and received his commission as a second lieutenant in the Army when he graduated in 2009.

“We always knew Steven would go in the service, ever since my brother Tom, who was in the Marines, came home from the Persian Gulf War,” said Steven’s mother, Liz Liguori.