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Army Pvt. James Browning's long journey home from Iraq took another detour, delayed a day by bad weather.

When he does arrive, likely this afternoon, the 21-year-old will be greeted at Albuquerque International Sunport by his family and a platoon of Blue Star Mothers.

None of them know what to expect.

"I'm terrified," said Browning's mother, Robin Simmons. "The doctor thinks he needs to see his family; it's been two years. But we're taking a risk bringing him here."

What they do know is that Browning will not come home the same young man who graduated from Rio Rancho High School a few years ago and joined the Army.

He suffers from "terrible PTSD," his mother said, along with a brain injury, and knee and back problems that make him "walk like a monkey."

Browning was serving at a combat outpost in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, when his unit's position was hit with a truck bomb suicide attack, followed by gunfire, on Feb. 19. Simmons said her son told her he was knocked unconscious, then woke to shooting.

Browning found his roommate lying beside him, and tried to carry him to safety when a helicopter arrived to evacuate the wounded, his mother said.

"He thought (his roommate) was alive. He was running, carrying him, and Jimmy fell to his knees because something hit him," she said. "And his roommate had fallen apart. He'd been cut in half."

Details like those are nearly impossible to confirm, and certainly aren't contained in the official press releases that follow the deaths of U.S. service members.

A military statement following the attack on Tarmiyah said two U.S. soldiers were killed and 29 were wounded, most not seriously. A story by the Wall Street Journal recounted a vicious battle involving Browning's unit, Demon Company from the Eighth Cavalry Regiment.

In the weeks that followed, Browning, then a specialist, began to come apart, his mother said. He called her to say he was seeing things, hearing people screaming for his help. He tried to commit suicide and was sent to an Army base in Germany.

His mother started calling state officials and her congressman, U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, fearing her son wasn't receiving the psychiatric care he needed.

Udall and state Veterans Services Secretary John Garcia were able to get Browning transferred to a psychiatric treatment unit at Fort Hood, Texas, a few months ago, Udall's spokeswoman, Marissa Padilla said.

Browning also began talking with a social worker from a state-backed behavioral health program for veterans.

Meanwhile, his mother said, Browning punched a noncommissioned officer who had walked up behind him and surprised him at Fort Hood, and he was demoted to the rank of private.

The Army gave him leave to come home for Christmas, but his family couldn't afford a plane ticket until Thursday, when Simmons attended an open house for the behavioral health program and told her son's story to Lt. Gov. Diane Denish.

Denish dipped into her own pocket and paid Browning's plane fare home, citing similar charitable donations she saw her uncle offer blue-collar workers when she was growing up.

"I know how important it is for families to be together over the holiday season," Denish said in a release.

So Pvt. James Browning, known to his mother as Jimmy or Elmer, because he looks like the cartoon character - a boy who, his mother said, used to spend his weekends visiting elderly residents of the nursing home where she worked - is getting closer to home.

In a few months, his family hopes, he'll be done with the Army. Or at least out of uniform. He might never be released from his Army experience.

"I gave my son to the military healthy, happy and whole," Simmons says. "They gave him back to me broken, and it can't be fixed."