"Fall Out!"

January 1, 2009 : 0300 hours.
Heroes Welcome Home Ceremony.

**** Company **** Aviation Regiment returned home early New Year's morning after a 12 month deployment; 3 months in moblization, 9 months in country. Read about it here.

Josh's homecoming was one of the most exciting, exhausting, wonderful, emotional days of my life! His flight came in at 3:00 am to the National Guard Base to a freezing 15 degrees below morning! Poor man was frozen stepping off the plane and walking across the flight line. I was so anxious to see him, to know that he was home, really home, no more goodbyes HOME, that I couldn't sleep more than an hour the entire night before. He called me from the demobilization base and from the airport....but it still seemed like a call from across the world even when I knew he was only 5 or 6 hours away. Theres something about separate time zones now...they seem to be more like separate planets. But finally we were counting the same hours. Waking up at the same time and standing in the same room! The Heroes Welcome Home Ceremony only lasted about 10 minutes. Long enough to stand in formation and hear the blessed words, "FALL OUT!" It was freezing, all the families overjoyed but half awake... needless to say, everyone was more than willing to claim their soldier and finally take them home. All day I kept staring at him, hugging him, kissing him, and asking him if he was home to stay. (In fact, its been 6 weeks and I STILL do that!)

I love my Soldier.