Looking Forward

So, in a military family, there are things that we just can't share with others.  For safety of not only our soldier but for other families' loved ones.  So dates, places, movements, etc. are just not allowed to be shared.  It's called OPSEC (operation security).  This doesn't mean that we don't follow the rumors at near rabid pace and gobble up the if's, and's, or's, and but's....

Army rumors are truly very unreliable and you learn rather quickly that you don't make plans based on them.  Don't get your hopes up too high or the fall is just that much further.  Don't start planning that Welcome Home party for the week after you 'heard' because it likely will change.

Change is inevitable and we learn to (frustratingly) roll with it.  However, not all the change in plans are bad!  Sometimes, SOMEtimes we get our soldiers back ahead of schedule.  SOMEtimes we get a deployment postponed.  SOMEtimes a training is cancelled and they stay home.  SOMEtimes we get one more night or two or twenty.  Those changes are not a change I will ever complain about because those are precious changes.  They make the changes that we brace ourselves for just a tiny bit easier to handle.

Since dating my hubby through the record holding NG deployment of 22 months (that was a few changes in the wrong direction if you didn't guess), we have had trainings that changed, drills that changed, deployments change, and dates we never count on as hard-and-fast.  So when I get rumors headed my way about changes that I'd like, well....I've learned to brace for the worst and prepare for the best.  That said, 3 different rough-rumor dates have reached me via various rumor wheels and none of them are my hard-and-fast idea.  I have one hard-and-fast and that is based on official orders (and those can change in a matter of minutes too).  Hmmmm, maybe I should just throw out the 'hard-and-fast' phrase for the foreseeable future...

I look forward to throwing a Welcome Home party.  I look forward to so many different things for our family.  The thing that I look forward to the most though is that first embrace.  Having that first hug off the plane/bus/whatever for our daughter and me is what I yearn for and I suspect will always be my favorite thing of a homecoming.  Every day is bringing us closer to that moment and I get giddy each time I think about it.  Time has flown by this deployment (though only when looking back on it).  I'm grateful for that, but I'm ready to have my husband home!  So let's go!  Let's throw a big Welcome Home party and have all our troops home and safe soon for those first hugs...