Holding a teddy bear and wearing her U.S. Army field uniform, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Veronica Davis strains to see through the thick crowd emerging from the escalator at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. She takes a deep breath. She is clearly nervous.

She smiles, very aware of the camera capturing this moment.

“Anticipation is something else,” she says and laughs.

Davis knows a thing about anticipation and intensity. After three tours in the war, she is home. The anticipation she’s feeling now is different. This anticipation is about living up to someone’s idea of you.

On her third tour in Afghanistan, Davis received a letter from then 8-year-old Sofie Deck from Mahomet, Illinois. “She’s the youngest one that wrote me, the youngest,” Davis says.