Thursday, October 25, 2007

Delayed

They have delayed my husband's return to the desert. He is still going, but it will just be at a different time. Is that vague enough? Hurry up and wait.

When we first got to Hood back in 2003, my husband was immediately assigned to 4th ID, given a unit, issued all of his gear and was packed, loaded, and ready to deploy at the end of the first week. Then because of Turkey not letting the troops enter through their country, he was delayed. Every day they would dismiss them and tell them that tomorrow was the day or definitely that Friday, 24 hours and they would be loaded up. Even though we treasured each additional day with him, 2 1/2 months later he finally left and it was almost a relief. The countdown could begin. I was still upset, miserable and scared, but the constant stress of wondering if today would be the last day and constantly putting things on hold was enough to drive anyone insane.

Before my husband deploys my parents always put on a big dinner for him with a lot of his favorite foods. I think we had about 8 of them before he finally left.

Until he leaves though, the kids and I will enjoy each day with him and make sure that they all count. (and secretly rejoice that he will be here to put up and take down all the decorations again this year!)
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3 comments:

Old Cowboy Dan said...

An early Merry Christmas to y'all for sure.

I remember "Hurry-up and Wait" from my stint in the mid 50's also. You learn to live with it as you have no other recourse.

October 25, 2007 at 10:52 AM
Gypsy at heart said...

At least now we can begin making tentative plans for the holidays.

October 25, 2007 at 2:01 PM
The Teacup Cottage said...

I ABSOLUTELY understand. Sometimes it feels less stressful to count the days until they come home than count the ones until they leave. We were in the same boat, but in the end one by one the battalions in the brigade we taken off the list to deploy until ours was the only one left. We were so excited waiting to see if our Soldiers would be told to stand down too, but in the end ours was the only one to go and in the jumbled mess of it all, they never got their R&R. So for a year they were deployed with no expected return date, thus no R&R. I think it was the hardest year for us so far.

October 26, 2007 at 4:59 PM

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