Some lit candles in their windows, signed mile-long greeting cards, and raffled off red, white and blue quilts.

Others tied yellow ribbons to trees, e-mailed battlefront soldiers every day and drove to Bangor International Airport at 3 a.m. to shake hands with weary Marines.

Maine residents have long been known for their home-front spirit in times of war, but when President Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 20, 2003, even lifelong Mainers surprised themselves at the outpouring of support. And it continues to this day.

Churches, schools, VFW halls and town offices closed ranks and rallied behind America’s fighting forces. Less popular than Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the second President Bush’s military operation drew heated criticism of his go-it-alone venture, but not of the troops’ involvement in the invasion of Iraq.

“This isn’t for or against the war,” Patti Craig of Eastport told the Bangor Daily News soon after the incursion began. “This [a single light glowing in a window] is in support of our troops … and for their families and their little children.”

Craig, whose son-in-law was waiting in New Jersey to be shipped to Kuwait, hoped her idea would catch on nationwide. Her 5-year-old granddaughter, Brooke Clark, knew the light was for her father.

Many of the most captivating news stories of the past year highlighted the innocence of youth and the way they responded to the onslaught of war. To many, the nightly battlefield images were the first they would remember.

Kate Campbell, a Kennebunkport fifth-grader, signed part of a mile-long card to be sent to Iraq. She said soldiers serving overseas “are helping our country to be safe.”

In Lewiston, between 8,000 and 10,000 messages were scrawled on a quarter-mile “thank you” similar in spirit to the one Kate and others autographed. Most simply wrote, “God bless you” in red, white and blue ink.

And then there are Ricky Bradeen and Emily Patrick, who both made news at age 11. They don’t know each other but are cut from the same piece of patriotic cloth.

Ricky resides in Medford; Emily in Greenville. Both were moved by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and especially Operation Iraqi Freedom, to mount Herculean efforts in support of the troops.

“I’m the general; this is what the officers wear,” Ricky told a TV reporter in January. “I’m the commander in chief and I started [the Northeast Militia].”

Donning his Marine uniform, Ricky marches in area parades with 50 of his fellow militia members. He’s also been greeting troops at the Bangor airport. Some have given him dog tags, medals, even paper money from Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq.

Emily “Em” Patrick’s contribution is mailing postcards of Moosehead Lake and pictures of herself in patriotic clothing to troops of the 21st Special Operations Squadron, which included her cousin.

“I felt pretty bad that some people weren’t getting anything,” the sixth-grade, high-honors pupil said during an interview in May 2003.

So every night after dinner, she sat down and poured her heart out in notes such as, “I feel safe to sleep at night because I know you are fighting for us,” and “I love what you’re doing for the USA. It takes a big heart that’s for sure.”

Last June, seventh-graders at Glenburn Middle School raffled a quilt to support the troops. Pupil Kaylee Caruso thought the school’s Civil Rights Team should show its true colors, so she asked her grandmother, Cynthia Knowles, to donate a handmade quilt.

At the end of three weeks, team members, with the help of math teacher Melanie Landry, had raised $330, enough to buy 13 USO Care Packages.

Glenburn teacher Jean Watts had another great idea. Her fifth-graders collected crossword puzzles, small games and toiletries, and sent cards and letters to two soldiers deployed overseas. They corresponded with their very own “GI Joe” and his buddy, both members of the 4th Infantry Division.

Glenburn’s National Junior Honor Society pupils donated school supplies for Iraqi children, along with 700 small stuffed animals that were dropped over Baghdad by Capt. Eric Puls, aka “the Beanie Baby Bomber.” Puls’ father, Lawrence, teaches seventh- and eighth-grade social studies at Glenburn.

Adults help with troop support as well. Last fall, the Ladies Auxiliary of VFW Post No. 4298 in Dexter voted to participate in the Adopt-A-Unit Program, which recognizes military units and their contributions to protecting our peace and freedom, according to a recent release. The auxiliary “adopted” the 619th Transportation Co. of the U.S. Army Reserve, which has a detachment in Dexter and is based in Auburn.

Returning troops at BIA often have been greeted by adults such as Vietnam War widow Sylvia Thompson, and Korean War veterans Harold Hansen, Everett Steele, Phil Eckert, Fred Hardin, John Wedin and Richard Banker (Ricky Bradeen’s grandfather).

Children attend greetings, too. Fran Branch’s Brownie Troop 198 of Orrington hung a hand-painted poster in the airport with the troop’s address printed on the back. From time to time they receive a letter from a grateful soldier who saw their sign while chatting on a cell phone at the airport.

The BIA troop greetings have come to symbolize continuing local support for incoming and outgoing flights. A loyal group promises that someone is always there to greet the troops, even if the clock says 3 a.m. Flights also include personnel en route from Bosnia and Afghanistan.

Bill Knight, acknowledged by attendees to be their chief and most loyal greeter, sees that every soldier has a chance to call home on one of 30 cell phones donated by Unicel of Bangor. The corporation has donated in excess of 100,000 hours of free air time for returning troops.

Ron and Evelyn Bradman help staff a former duty-free shop that now serves as a small lounge where troops can sit down and be photographed Gen. Patton-style in front of a huge American flag. Before each flight, they drop by Sam’s Club in Bangor, which donates free cookies for all troops.

Ray and Becky Davis are also airport regulars. Three of their sons, all Bangor High School graduates, are serving in the military. Their middle son, Brad, served 12 months with the Army in Iraq and is based in Germany. Becky is president of the Bangor-area Blue Star Mothers.

“Brad is very proud of what he did,” she said Wednesday. “And he said he wants to return to Baghdad, not today, but in the near future, to see how things are going.”

Knight keeps a notebook full of letters and mementos sent back from grateful troops. His favorite may be a note from Maj. Jeffrey A. Rondeau of Manhattan, Kan., a medical doctor who worked in the 21st Combat Support Hospital in Balad, Iraq.

“Maybe you wonder, as you rise at various hours and greet the cold weather,” he wrote, “whether or not the soldiers really care; whether or not it really makes a difference. I’m here to tell you that it absolutely does and is a stirring testament to the kind of values that we all should have.”

That gem, and other letters like it, warms Knight’s heart and keeps him coming back for more troop flights.

Dick Shaw can be reached at 990-8204 or dshaw@bangordailynews.net.