Coming Home - Surprises

It seemed that God did not want us, my squadron, to come home to the US, at least not on time. We had delay after delay after delay, well, you get the picture. I personnaly had one extra days worth of clothes with me, which turned out to not be enough, so I bought forty bucks of "skivies" and a towel to accomodate the delay we had in Kuwait. It appears that when a unit departs from wherever they are assigned a number that cooresponds with an aircraft. My unit is large enough to use a whole aircraft by themselves, so we were using a plane that seated a few hundred. Well, we were to fly on that plane no matter what, and that particular aircraft broke down often, hence the delays.

Six days later, on January 31st, we finally arrived in North Carolina. After, a brief formation in which our CO(Comanding Officer) told us how good we had done and one Marine was granted the "First Kiss"( another example a depressing moments), we were dismissed.

On my way to grab my seabags and get out of there, another Marine approached me and said my Mom was there. His proof that she was indeed my Mom was, he rattled off my family's names and my first name. Still, in disbelief,I walked about the hangar to find my Mom. Now you have to imagine about three hundred Marines and twice as many people in civiliain attire at five o'clock in the morning, not the easiest of situations to find one person. I did a once over decided he was mistaken and went to grab my seabags and get out of there. As I was picking them up he comes back and points to a sign in yellow and black writing that says, " Wyldth1ng, Welcome Home." Okay, well, that pretty much cinches the disbelief at that point, someone is here. Yes, it was worded exactly like that.

So, after grabing my seabags, I go to the sign and behold my Mom was there. Wacky. Thirteen years, and this was a first. Wacky.

My Mom and I spent a day and a half together, did the lunch thing and recieved pedicures. (My Alpha Male brotherhood would never admit to going to get their feet done, I personnally think it is fucking awesome and worth the twenty bucks.) (No, I had clear polish put on.) The next day we had lunch again and then I drove her to the airport. Surprises can be fun.