A Navy chief petty officer came home from a long deployment and held his infant daughter for the first time, a rare piece of good news for a military family.

• The sailor, Joey, had only seen his daughter in photos during her first nine months of life.
• He described the homecoming as surreal and said he struggled to put the moment into words.
• The separation stretched to 18 months of waiting before the family could be together.
• The deployment was described as a historic one, part of a wave of extended Navy time at sea.

Outlook: The family now starts life together at home, though long deployments continue to keep other sailors away from newborns.