CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune Lance Cpl. Samuel Clark held his daughter, Ava, and received a kiss from his wife, Hillary, at Camp Pendleton yesterday.

CAMP PENDLETON – Lance Cpl. Dennis Burgos returned to Camp Pendleton with about 2,200 Marines and sailors yesterday after a seven-month deployment to the Western Pacific and Persian Gulf. But it was just the start of a memorable week. Waiting for him on the base were his father, a high school friend and his fiancee, Celia Frausto.

COLLEGE AREA – The wife of a former dean has donated $10 million toward San Diego State University's School of Accountancy. The gift, one of the largest in university history, was made by Gertrude Lamden in honor of her late husband, Charles W. Lamden, the first dean of SDSU's College of Business Administration.

SANTA YSABEL – They gathered early yesterday in the parking lot of Dudley's Bakery in Santa Ysabel, a couple of miles northeast of where last fall's Witch Creek fire began. There were lots of lawyers, electrical and fire experts, insurance people and Cal Fire and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. employees.

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – The agency behind downtown San Diego's redevelopment boom should be dismantled and folded into city government, the county grand jury suggested in a report released yesterday.

Usually, it's a grocery store or restaurant that says, “Buy one, get one free.” But in Escondido, a developer is offering two houses for the price of one. Michael Crews Development is willing to give away a four-bedroom Escondido row home, valued at $400,000, with the purchase of one of its $1.6 million-and-up, 2-acre estate homes in San Pasqual Valley.

CAMP PENDLETON – Marine Gen. James Mattis said yesterday he neither sought nor received advice from an assistant whose counsel would have tainted the military's case against troops connected to the killing of 24 men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq, about 2½ years ago.