We drove to the airport wearing our red, white, and blue outfits, welcome home signs in hand. We parked the car and were directed right out on the runway behind a rope barricade with all the other expectant families and friends. The summer sun beat down on us and we stood there for what seemed like hours, gazing into the bright sky expectantly, pointing and squealing at any dark shadow that crossed our field of vision, then sighing when it turned out to be a bird or a trick of the sun on our squinting eyeballs. Finally, a dot appeared in the sky, growing larger and circling around us. The crowd stirred and everyone got to their feet, waving and cheering. The plane landed and taxied to a stop a few hundred feet away. We were instructed to stay behind the rope until our soldier found us to make things more orderly, but after about the fifth soldier, we couldn't take it any more and surged around the plane. One after another, soldiers disembarked seemingly in slow motion. Our group headed to the back of the crowd so we could see the soldiers as they first stepped out of the aircraft.It seemed like Braden must have been sitting in the very back of the plane it took him so long to show up on those steps. But then I saw his familiar shape, the certain slope of his shoulders, that specific tilt of his head, and I grabbed one kid in each arm and ran. I headed around the edge of the crowd and intercepted him. The last true test was the kids, and they went straight from my arms to his. That was the icing on our joyous homecoming cake. I felt giddy and oh so happy. We all hugged him hard and then dragged him to our group for more hugs and kisses and happy claps on the back. After interviews with a couple local TV stations (our family was too adorable to resist of course), we headed home for good. Finally.
We went to eat with some family and attended an awards ceremony Braden's battery arranged. We rode on a fire truck in a parade, and eventually made our way home to where friends and neighbors lined the street, waiting to wave hello and welcome our soldier home.
The majority of this homecoming excursion, Braden was fairly quiet and contemplative, and I was just happy to be sitting next to him. One part of our conversation does stand out in my mind, however. Soon after we started driving home, I chattered about how excited I was to have him back. Braden was also very excited and happy to be home but mentioned how weird it felt to be home for good. This didn't concern me too much because I understood it would take some time for adjustment.
Family members had attended a training of sorts before the soldiers returned. We'd been told the possible struggles the guys might go through readjusting to civilian life, as well as the possibilities of some of them developing Post Traumatic Stress. They gave an extremely low percentage for that possibility--somewhere around 17%--so I dismissed that worry and paid close attention to the other information on helping the soldiers adjust to reentry into this very different world than the one they had lived in for the past year.
I felt prepared and ready to be patient and helpful in order to make Braden's transition as smooth as possible. And the first few weeks of having him home did go fairly well. Little did we know that, for our family, the war was just beginning.
