Day 1

I'm a little behind on these as I have been setting up a lot of things, but this is my account of the first day, September 30th, 2009.

The phone rang this morning at 5:21 am. It was SFC Samuels, my immediate supervisor. I fumbled through the dark for it, but was too late to catch the call. When the chime came in for a new voicemail, I let it go as I stared at the celing of my room one last time. T didn't bother to check the voicemail as I normally would have. I knew what it said, so I replied with a text message reading only "I'm up." I got dressed, threw my bags in the van, said goodbye to my Sister-in-law, and loaded the wive and kids up in the van.
It was about 6:15 when we got to the airfield. It's a place in which I've become comfortable working, but would now say the last face-to-face goodbye to my family. at 6:30 a brief formation was held to ensure that everyone was there, and they let us go back to our loved ones to await the buses. Abby, Alex, and Ash all played as the sun slowly rose to the east. They would not be going to school today. It's Wednesday, a short day for all of them anyhow, and they had something else to do. The retention NCO came by with flags and boxes which contained a t-shirt and a nylon enclosed binder full of army promotional items. I grabbed one up before even knowing the contents, as there were plenty available. I stuffed the binder into what little space remained in my backpack, and Rachel made her claim on the t-shirt.
Everything was pretty easy and simple until I saw the first bus preparing to turn towards us. Then it all hit me pretty hard. I did my best to hold it together, but could not help letting a few tears fall. I still had to struggle though to keep from overwhelming the kids. Few have ever seen me cry, and I'm not sure how they would handle it. Abby seemed to understand the gravity of the situation, and Alex was at least playing along. Ash was the one who really got to me though. He rarely speaks, but he said good bye as if he knew exactly what it meant this time. As Rachel started to cry, Abby hugged her and said
"It's okay Mommy, I'll take care of you."
What more could a father ask for?
As it all got to be too much, I sent them off. They could have stayed longer, or even followed the buses to the airport as some families did, but we like to have as much control over our goodbyes as we can, even if it means doing it a little earlier. SSG MacNamee, newly promoted and a fellow commo guy, came up and gave me an understanding pat on the back. He said to me
"It'll only be 30 days." referring to the possible leave scheduled for the end of our mobilization.
"I won't be taking the leave." I told him. "I can't do this again any time soon."
I bummed a cigarette from PFC Rose to calm my nerves, loaded my bag on the bus, and got on.
The American legion had a team of motorcyclists bearing flags escort our buses to the airport, and by 9:00 am, we were there loading it up. I volunteered for the detail to load bags into the cargo spaces of the 737 we would take to Oklahoma. Didn't take long, and despite about a dozen weapons racks, we had plenty of space left over. Finally getting on the plane, I saw why. In a column of 3 on each side of the aircraft, there was no more then 1 person per row on board. It's nice to have a little extra space. As we flew away, I watched the city I grew up in and have always considered home disappear behind us. At one point I could see all the way across it to the Chesapeake Bay, and as we passed through the clouds I knew it was going to be obscured from my sight for at least the next 6 months. Half the people on board eventually sprawled out across 3 seats to sleep. The staff was courteous and generous with food and drinks, and I finally got a cup of coffee. It was a little weak, but enough to keep me going.
I spent a fair amount of the in flight time writing, and as we approached the airport, I realized that Oklahoma from the air looks pretty much exactly as I had imagined it. Rural and rustic.
We took more buses, this time much more like the ones you might expect soldiers to ride in, the rest of the way to Fort Sill. We checked in with our ID cards, had some food at the “Mob Cafe” (pronounced like MObe) and went on to where we would stay. I got a 4 person room with Specialist Hardy, my communications partner in crime, Sergeant Coley, one of our operations counterparts, and Specialist McGill, our supply support. We got all set up in our room, and await another day. The first on our way to war can end.