Well, I thought I'd go back a week or so and share the details of McHottie's homecoming. As probably everyone knows, I had an idea of when he would be arriving, but couldn't share much with anyone. As the day approached, I tried to get things done around the house and be ready for him. However, we still hadn't had the day actually confirmed. At first, he was supposed to be flying out of Iraq (or Kuwait? not sure) on the 23rd of November. From that, I figured he'd be home on the flight coming in on the 26th. (We were given a website which listed ceremony times of different flights that were codenamed. We had yet to receive the actual codename of his flight.) But, then I talked to him on Thanksgiving night and he said it was moved to flying out on the 26th. So, I again made an assumption with the returning flights that he'd be home on the 28th.
However, on the 26th, I still hadn't received a call about it, so I started to think he wouldn't be home until Dec 2nd. The afternoon of the 26th we went to the new barracks for the single soldiers to make up the beds. THAT was a complete disaster, but while we were there I ended up talking to the Command Sargeant Major's wife and she said she would try and find something out for me that night. She called and said the captain
thought he remembered seeing our last name on the manifest and that I'd hopefully get a call the next morning.
I did! I was laying Mumble down and we were both almost asleep when the phone rang to give me the return information. I hung up and said YAY!!! Mumble sat straight up and started clapping LOL So, there were a few changes during the day on Wednesday, but the flight finally returned around 11:30p and the ceremony took place around 1am. Yes, I said AM!
I put the little monkey down for bed and got ready. Around 10:30p I woke him up and got him dressed. At that time, the ceremony was scheduled for 12:30 and we were supposed to be there 2 hours early. We bundled up and headed out for the field.
I ended up meeting a girl who's with McH's battallion, but a different company. We talked for about 30 minutes trying to decide if we wanted to head down to the actual ceremony site and then someone walked by and said the flight had landed and it would be about an hour or so (the guys had to swipe their ID cards and turn in their weapons, along with some paperwork before they got bused over to the field).
Between the two of us (she had two kids in the car sleeping too) we decided to sit in our cars until about midnight before heading down. Mumble, thankfully, fell back asleep and he stayed asleep when I moved him back to the stroller. I'd layed a down blanket (it's special, used to be my grandpa's!) in the stroller, then him and then wrapped the blanket around him again. He slept through the dj and the crowd yelling and all the loud music!
All of a sudden, we saw a cop car come through to shut the road. (Okay, here's the setup. There was the headquarters building, then in front of that is a huge field where they had set up bleachers. Then, across the field is one of the main roads going through post and that is the street they shut down.) Soon, five buses pulled up and sat there for a minute while everyone cheered! Then, slowly the buses started pulling away and you could see all of the soldiers in formation. They marched across the field and the horses were marching in front, sort of going perpendicular to them ... they were going in front of us if that makes any sense! The general gave a very short speech and off we were to find McH!
I did take some video, but it was dark and a little hard to see. This is when the buses first started pulling away. I didn't realize that it would be so dramatic, so I stopped recording!
This is a continuation. If you look at the center when I zoom in you will see a dark area ... the dark area will move toward and across the street and will become the soldiers!
And, finally, here they are in formation with the short speech from the General.
