Knee Deep in the Hooah!

I wanted to share an article here that I read first at GoArmyParents. I love reading stories of homecoming and safe returns. Enjoy!

‘Living In America’
Our correspondent recounts the anxiety, fatigue and joy of having a loved one return from war.
By Allison Samuels
Newsweek
Aug 17, 2007

(excerpt)

Aug. 17, 2007 – On any normal day, Killeen, Texas, is not the place to be. It’s a palm-size city near Austin where the Target store on the main strip is the big hangout. But this past week, Killeen—home of Ft. Hood Army base, was the best place to be for my family and me: my little cousin Alexia, 24, came home from Iraq.

It’s hard to explain the joy of having a loved one return safe and sound from the battlefield. Every day they are away seems to bring more news of death in a faraway land, and you hold your breath, praying that she or he hasn’t become a statistic. You learn to rejoice over the little things: the phone calls and e-mails from Baghdad that come in the middle of the night, thanking you for the most recent care package. When you learn your family member is coming home, you count the days, praying that fate doesn’t intervene and make real the fears you’ve conjured in your head (a sniper’s bullet? an IED?). And when your loved one finally sets foot on American soil, it’s as if you can breathe once more.

(Snip)

On Aug. 5, aunts, uncles, cousins and any number of other family members made their way to Ft. Hood’s high-school-size gymnasium, where we sat on bleachers next to hundreds of other grandmothers, aunts, wives and kids waiting to see their loved ones. When the parade of young and tired-looking men and women from Unit 4 CMMC 13th came walking through the gym doors to the beat of James Brown’s “Living in America,” the screams were gleeful and deafening. Children danced on the gym floor, and wives, mothers and husbands gave hugs that seemed to never end.

(snip)

That night was a family reunion of sorts. Alexia—after two long showers—delighted us until 4 in the morning with an impromptu fashion show of all the clothes she’d purchased online. But there were no stories of war that night—only happy tales of boyfriends, eating at Red Lobster and outlet-mall shopping to be done here in the States. As the sun began to rise, we all retired to our hotel rooms while Alexia’s mother stood watch over her eldest daughter to make sure she slept soundly on her first night home. After a third shower, she finally did.

Read full article HERE