His welcome home ceremony was at the insane hour of 3:30 AM. Since they wanted family members there 2 hours early (in case the soldiers got done with their processing early), Mama was at the gym at 1:30 AM. Holy smokes! Thankfully, Gummy Bear's wonderful respite care worker came and stayed with the kids so Mama didn't have to disrupt their sleep.
Unlike most of the pictures you see of soldiers coming home, we did not get to see them at the airfield. This is, of course, for the safety of the soldiers. We sat and waited in the gym until they marched in. (Papa Bear was in the 4th row, but you can't see him in this picture.) My friend, whose husband is in the same unit, overslept and made it in right before the soldiers marched in!
After a couple of (thankfully) brief messages from the commander of the brigade and the division's 2nd-in-command, the soldiers were released. (Those are not heavy, sleep-deprived eyes. Papa blinks every time someone takes a pictures of him.)
The hard part was finding Papa's bags afterwards. They lined them all up on the grass in back of the gym, and there was no light. Papa found one of his bags over by the buses. He said it was too heavy for them to bring over with the rest of the bags. Whatever!
We returned home and got some sleep before the kids came piling into the room in the morning. Papa was home!!!
Yay! I'm so glad he is home safely! I was thinking the time went really quickly...it didn't seem like a year, but you answered my question. :o) That's awesome they got to come home early! Congratulations!
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