Saturday, February 2, 2008

He was so young...

This is Gunner when we were stationed at Kirch-Goens. He must have been 25 in the picture and he was headed out to Bosnia for 12 months. I remember them telling us how Clinton was only going to have troops there for a year--ummmm, yeah, we see how that worked out. His chain of command told us they would never have to deploy for a year again, not even to Korea (it was supposed to count as a one year hardship tour). Ha!

He left two days before our first anniversary and one day before his Opa was buried there in Germany. They got to Hungary (they were the first ones down there--1995) and camped out in the snow next to a hotel that was full of reporters. The CO got twelve 3' Christmas trees and handed one to each group with directions to decorate them so they could increase morale. Mandatory Fun. What's a Soldier to do? They made ornaments out of duct tape and then hung pictures of their family all over them. His group came in 3rd. I wish he had kept an ornament to add to our tree here at home as a reminder of that Christmas.

At one point during that tour they handed out Olympic tshirts to everyone, put them in a huge room and told them to scream and be happy. Apparently they had arranged to show how morale was so high during that time and the guys were having a good time. Bonus points for Clinton I guess.

Anyway, I miss the old BDU's and boy was Gunner young....

7 comments:

Gypsy at heart said...

You are right, he was young. Now his hair is beginning to gray. Who did that to him?

ABW said...

Ummmm....couldn't be me, must be the kids.

Old Cowboy Dan said...

I was 20 when I started my short military career. It seems that the youngest are the first to respond to our country's call.

Anonymous said...

I don't know about that, ABW.

jellissc said...

How quickly time marches on.

Out of fairness to Gunner perhaps I should post of picture of ABW from the same time period in all her own youthful glory! :)

I liked the old BDU's too. I always thought my dad looked handsome in them.

Anonymous said...

Ahh, I miss the old bdus too, although I don't miss the last minute sewing on of patches. He's cute ;)

Leslie said...

I like the old ones too!
I think he looks exactly the same... but he was already old when I first met him :) haha either that or the hat he wears in the pic lets you imagine where the hairline ends and bare scalp begins. dont worry, you married a perpetual hottie. love you both!