They stood by and anxiously waited as the machine lowered the flag-covered casket onto the tarmac.

The family of Lance Cpl. David R. Hall would have traded anything not to be there to watch their boy come home, at least not like this. But as the mechanical arms brought Hall’s body down to American soil, it at least meant they could be with him again.

“It was symbolic and important for us,” said Hall’s sister, Lora Hall, minutes after the family returned to Lorain from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware where her brother’s body arrived Wednesday morning.

“We saw him come off the plane and return home,” she said.

Hall, 31, died Monday from injuries sustained during a blast from an improvised explosive device while patrolling in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province. The Marine’s body will be embalmed and an autopsy will be performed before it can return to Cleveland sometime this weekend, his sister said.

Lora Hall said the family has not planned funeral arrangements yet but hopes to publicize them so that all who knew and loved her brother could celebrate his life with them.

“I’m already starting to think about what I’m going to say, and I think I’m going to try and talk about how he wanted to make people appreciate freedom and all that means,” she said. “We’re going to focus on that a lot. It’ll be comforting.”

The family arrived at the base about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday and were greeted by dozens of Marines who answered questions and guided them through the process, she said. A Marine staff sergeant based in Northeast Ohio was with them the whole time, she said, driving them to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, flying with them and driving them from Philadelphia where they departed to the Air Force base.

“One thing that was very comforting was the Marine Corps takes care of families,” she said. “There are even a lot of high-ranking officials in his company that are going to fly down for the service. They were really embracing us.”

The family was taken to a small chapel where they were briefed on what they would be doing.

Afterwards, they went to where the body was and witnessed what the military terms a “dignified transfer.”

“The honor guard marched in and went onto the plane and stood next to him. They were all dressed up. They weren’t wearing their dress blues, but they had their khaki uniforms and white gloves. Everything was very official. It was very symbolic. They take their time,” she said.

She said the Marine Corps is trying to get Hall’s best friend, Lance Cpl. Jean Fenelus, to fly out of Afghanistan for the funeral service. Fenelus, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., became almost like an adopted son to Hall’s family and Lora Hall even took to calling him her brother. Both soldiers were in the same 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force based in Camp Lejeune, N.C.

A Lorain native, David R. Hall joined the Marines in 2006 after spending six years working at the Ohio Assembly Plant in Avon Lake and at the Lorain Assembly Plant. His father, Delmar Hall, said his son joined the Marines because he wanted something to be proud of.

He spent about seven months in 2007 in Iraq training military police and was sent to Afghanistan in June. He was scheduled to come home Dec. 17.

A Southview High School graduate, he joined the football team his senior year and started at quarterback, earning a scholarship to play football for a Division III college. He turned it down to live in Chicago for a year, where he worked at a camera shop. He also lived in Elyria.

David Hall was the eighth Lorain County man to die while serving overseas since 2004 and the first killed in Afghanistan.

Contact Adam Wright at 329-7129 or awright@chroniclet.com.