Equipment suitable to welcome soldier to America (9)
I believe the answer is:
apparatus
'equipment' is the definition.
(apparatus can mean pieces of equipment)
'suitable to welcome soldier to america' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'soldier' could be 'para' (short for paratrouper) and 'para' is found in the answer.
'suitable' could be 'apt' (I've seen this before) and 'apt' is present in the leftover letters.
'america' could be 'us' (United States) and 'us' is located in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
(Other definitions for apparatus that I've seen before include "Technical kit" , "Equipment, device" , "Lab equipment" , "Piece of equipment" , "Technical equipment" .)