At the funeral home, there are red and white flowers - added just the last few days - and ribbons and special American flags for the limousines.

And flags for, yes, the polished hearse.

"Everything's got to be perfect," said funeral director Derrick Robinson, whose daily business is death and trying to make that death somehow bearable for those who survive.

But never before was it the death of a U.S. Marine in combat in Afghanistan, who grew up just a couple of miles from the funeral home.

"We owe this young man the very best we can offer," Robinson said. "He gave his life for every one of us."

Staff Sgt. Thomas Joseph "T.J." Dudley, 29, died Thursday when the helicopter on which he ran the crew started taking enemy fire. His funeral will be Thursday at Fort Mill High School.

So many people are proud of Dudley and want to honor him today, when his body arrives back in Fort Mill.

Military transport planes have carried Dudley's body from Afghanistan to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

This morning, he will arrive at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, where members of American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts from Fort Mill and Rock Hill will be waiting on the tarmac - saluting as T.J. Dudley makes his way home for the last time.

In the homes of Vietnam and Korea and Desert Storm veterans in Fort Mill and Tega Cay - who make up the honor guard for American Legion Post 43 - buttons were shined and uniforms inspected late Tuesday to get ready for that salute.

Rifles were cleaned and boots were spit-shined until a crying mother's face could be seen in the reflection.

Because if T.J. Dudley's mother wants to cry on those spit-shined boots, these tough guys will let her.

"We came home," said Vietnam War combat veteran Nat Helms. "But this young Marine did not come home. He died in a place he was sent, and he did what men do - his best.

"He will get the best we have to offer him."

Also expected to lead the procession from the airport to Fort Mill is Rolling Thunder and the Patriot Guard - made up of dozens and dozens of combat veterans, most of them on motorcycles.

But one guy will be in a Jeep, looking like Santa Claus because Dave Jordan of Rock Hill, Vietnam combat veteran, is Santa Claus to the troops as far away as Iraq.

But today there will be no red suit. Today, Dave Jordan salutes a combat veteran who died.

"This young man, this family, is what American sacrifice is all about," Jordan said. "This Marine is coming home, and we will make sure that he comes home in a manner that fits that sacrifice.

"He will come home with honor."

The procession is expected to head southeast along S.C. 160 from the state line and wind through Tega Cay before reaching the Palmetto Funeral Home on Carolina Place, behind the Lowe's Home Improvement store.

Where S.C. 160 and Carolina Place intersect, the Marine Corps League expects to have a detachment.

Men with combat wounds from wars, limps from wars, steel plates from wars, will salute one of their own.

Police from Fort Mill and Tega Cay will lead the way.

All along the route, people are expected to wave flags, paying tribute to a man who died doing the only job he ever wanted to do.

In that job, fighting in a war, T.J. Dudley sure did knock enough Taliban and al-Qaida fighters senseless that he will never be forgotten by the enemy.

But Dudley always wanted to do one other job - protect Marines younger than him and get them home to their families.

Dudley, nearing the end of his sixth deployment in a decade of combat, died in the Helmand province of Afghanistan - a place as close to hell as there is on earth in 2011, as described by anybody who has had to fight there.

A marine from York, Chris Propst, was wounded there just a month ago.

It is the same place of dust and dirt, rocks and desolation, a place politicians send fathers in uniform as politicians argue about wars.

The place that so many area Army National Guard soldiers from Fort Mill in their last deployment undertook similar combat missions as what T.J. Dudley was doing on Thursday when he died.

That mission took place just two weeks before he was set to come home to his wife and three kids.

Every single sergeant and staff sergeant in that Fort Mill unit has talked to each other the past few days about the death of this Marine.

That's because every one of them is just like Dudley - in charge of recruits as young as 18.

It is these non-commissioned officers who run military combat operations. They keep helicopters running and their guys man the machine guns. They run from convoy to convoy with a rifle and prayers.

They protect their men at all costs.

"I don't know the details, but I know that this Marine staff sergeant was in charge of that helicopter, and that means that everything in it was his responsibility," said Staff Sgt. Chris Hoagland of the Fort Mill Army National Guard unit.

Hoagland got back in October from deployment to Helmand. He has three sons in the same unit - two of them were in Afghanistan with him. The third son was wounded in Afghanistan during a previous deployment.

"You think about those young people following you, listening to you, every second of every minute of every day," Hoagland said. "You know that you have to get them home. They come first. You come second.

"I hate what happened to this young man, but I am proud of him. We are all proud of him."

The road to the funeral home will be lined today with veterans and kids and mothers and grannies, and guys with white beards and big bellies like Santa Dave Jordan.

Workers - from car dealerships such as Fort Mill Ford and convenience stores along the way - will stop their daily lives for a few minutes, and wave American flags.

Just people who want to salute and say thanks.

And then the road will be lined again Thursday afternoon - from the funeral home, the road heading east on S.C. 160 across the Interstate 77 bridge, then south on Munn Road - for the less than a mile ride to Fort Mill High for the funeral.

Right across the street from Fort Mill High School is the National Guard armory for Fort Mill Army soldiers. The soldiers working there will be out front, saluting, as all drive by.

It is the building Chris Hoagland and the other Fort Mill troops - just like T.J. Dudley of the Marines from Fort Mill, all those sergeants - left three times for these wars.

Each time, Hoagland, Sgt. Eric Kimbrell and so many other sergeants left that building with a promise to get those young guys home safe - or die trying.

And now the building is across the street from a funeral of a sergeant just like them.

"I hope anyone who ever thought about what it means to be an American, and can make it out there for the procession or the funeral, comes out," Hoagland said. "The hardest trips on that helicopter are the first one in country, and the last one before you go home.

"This is a chance for people to show Dudley and his family that they appreciate what he did on that last trip - because he did it for them."

Want to be there?

The procession escorting Staff Sgt. T.J. Dudley's body from the Charlotte airport around 10:30 a.m. will follow S.C. 160 southeast, then turn west onto Gold Hill Road into Tega Cay.

After circling parts of Tega Cay, the procession will head back east on Gold Hill Road and turn east onto S.C. 160 before turning north onto Carolina Place toward Palmetto Funeral Home.

The public is invited to view the procession anywhere along the route.