Posted on 02/06/2015 6:17:37 AM PST by SandRat
FORT HUACHUCA — A woman held a sign as she sat on a bleacher in the Barnes Feld House Wednesday night.
It read: “I’d wait for you forever, but 292 days is long enough.”
Little did she know the sign should have read 293 days, because that is the length of time she actually had to wait for her soldier to come back home, after spending more than nine months in the troubled areas of the Middle East and Afghanistan.
It wasn’t until after midnight — precisely 15 minutes into Thursday morning — before the unnamed soldier was one of nearly 300 members of the 40th Expeditionary Signal Battalion marching into the gym to rousing applause and cheers after serving in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
During a mercifully short welcoming home ceremony, it was easily seen the returning GIs and their families and friends were ready to embrace each other.
Another woman waved a lighted sign that read: “I’m here for my husband, my heart, my hero … Spc. Boes.”
The field house and other places on the post have been where departing and returning soldiers have said their sad tearful goodbyes and equally tearful but happy hellos.
The 40th’s brigade commander ensured the formal ceremony in the early hours of Thursday morning was quick.
Col. James Parks, who commands the 11th Tactical Theater Signal Brigade, whose headquarters are now at Fort Hood, Texas, drove to Arizona with his wife, to greet the returning soldiers. He had seen them off last year when they departed on May 4.
“I could not be prouder of these soldiers,” he said, noting he knew they and those waiting to greet them “have better things to do.
With that, he returned the battalion to its leaders and immediately the soldiers were dismissed. Then the gym floor became a blur of returning men and women and those in the stands running toward each other.
Soldier parents reached down and picked up their small children.
Other older kids and spouses hugged and kissed their returning dads, moms, husbands and wives.
For the Locklear family it was not a new experience.
Returning from his third deployment was Master Sgt. James Locklear.
His wife Fairrena, a retired Army staff sergeant, deployed three times during her career.
“Once we were deployed at the same time,” she said.
For 13-year-old daughter Inaaji, the best thing was being able to hug her dad again.
“I didn’t want to let him go,” she said.
Eli, the Locklear’s 12-year-old son, smiled as his dad mentioned how good he looked wearing a tie.
And for the family, like many others, it just wasn’t one hug, as family members kept hugging each other over and over again, like they wanted to ensure it was real and not a mirage.
Elsewhere smaller knots of families were having their private reunions.
In one corner two soldiers each held their first child, both about a month old. One of the infants was dressed in camouflage pajamas.
Like any first time fathers they held them gingerly, afraid they might break them.
In no time, the gym was empty.
Soldiers and families started a return to normalcy, that is until the call for a new deployment is sounded.
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