Between Christmas and New Years 2008, Phillip signed up for the ‘College First’ program with the Army National Guard. That means he had to do his monthly drills starting in January, and after he graduated High School this June, he had to leave for Basic Training and AIT. We dropped him of at the hotel to leave for Basic on July 27th, and he went to Ft. Jackson, South Carolina.

Eric had been planning on flying out for the Graduation all along, I was going to stay home with the animals. My best excuse probably is that any graduation in Germany just doesn’t have the same extending significance it has here. One usually goes to one’s own graduation – if at all, and that’s it. So after Keesha died and there was only one dog to worry about, and we already had the hotel and car booked, it just struck me that what if…. What if I worked it out at work so I could work the weekend and would not have to use up vacation days I didn’t really have. And surely, there’s a way to take care of Leia without totally traumatizing her.

So I worked it out. I booked my flight, too, and was able to still get on the exact flights as Eric’s. I worked the weekend before and some extra on Monday and Tuesday and only had to take around 7 vacation hours. Leia went to Camp Pow Wow, after passing her ‘Interview’ a couple weeks ago – and the whole time, we never told Phillip that I had changed my mind and was coming, too.

So on Wednesday, we dropped Leia off at the camp and headed for the airport. I had reformatted our old ‘travel’ laptop because it had gotten so slow, it was ridiculous. Waiting for our flight out, I discovered that I had forgotten to install the wireless network card. I probably could have found a driver online, but without having the driver, I could not get online. Eric’s notebook worked, but he was hogging it, so I was without internet access for 3 days and survived just fine. Our flight out of SA was delayed and left us with less than 20 minutes to heck clear across the Memphis airport and catch our connection, but we landed on time in the crappiest weather I’d seen in a while. Cold and rainy and just yuck. I had to wear socks for the first time since maybe February. We picked up the rental, checked in the hotel (ever seen a La Quinta that’s NOT next to a Denny’s???) and went do dinner at an Outback nearby. And while we were there, Eric got a text from Phillip “Are you guys here yet?”. WTF— guyS??? How does the kid know I’m there??? It was a SECRET and SURPRISE. Who blabbed??? Then it dawned on me…. When Basic started, they took everyone’s cellphones away, and there is no such thing as ‘computer privileges’ in Basic Training. So with him not having a cellphone or internet access, I had felt very safe posting info about my trip on my Facebook page – and his. So he got his cellphone back sooner than I had expected, and I figured he’d been able to read some of those Facebook posts. So much for my surprise.

However, as we were getting back to the hotel, my cellphone rang (it never rings) and it was Phillip, wanting to know where I was, since he’d been calling the house-phone which went to voicemail. I told him the house-phone had been having issues and didn’t address the question about my whereabouts. We chatted for a bit, but it was very odd since I did not know if he knew where I was or not. Based on his text, I figured he knew, but thought that maybe he was just playing along.

The next morning, we left around 7 for Family Day at Ft. Jackson. The event was scheduled to start at 9, but we had been warned about heavy traffic delays (didn’t notice any). It wasn’t raining, but very cold and foggy. I had real shoes on and a sweatshirt jacket, and still froze through to the bone. I was surprised how many people where there so early already, and we got in line where we stood for well over one hour. They finally let us into the stadium, and at least the bleachers were covered, but it was still very cold. Originally, the plan was for me to sit away from Eric and stay hidden until a bit after Eric had hooked up with Phil, but since we were no longer sure if Phil already knew I was there or not, and mostly, because I needed the body heat, I sat with Eric. And I figured, if he does not know yet, it doesn’t matter that much at which point he gets his surprise. But mostly, it was that body heat thing.

We could see the guys across the field under the trees, but it was too far away, even with my camera’s zoom, to make out any faces. Plus, there were so many of them — all dressed alike. And finally, a few of them came running across the field, demonstrating squad tactics – you know, the stuff you see in “Apocalypse Now” and other war movies. I have never liked those before, and I like them even less now. But that’s a whole other topic. Then they set off some very colorful smoke by the treeline, and the brand new soldiers started running out towards us and lined up in the front of the field. Of course we had no idea where Phillip was, aside from suspecting him on the right side, since he was in Foxtrott Company – and there was no ‘G’, so I took some random pictures – and turns out, thanks to optical and digital zoom, I got lucky.

But who cares about all this ceremony stuff – I just wanted to see the kid. And finally, we could join them in the field. Heading down, I lost Eric – apparently he was more anxious to see the boy than he was worried how I’d maneuver on the wet and muddy slopes in my heels – so by the time I managed to get down there without falling and/or breaking or twisting a leg/knee/ankle/hip, I couldn’t see Eric or Phillip. But then, there came Phillip, his eyes were definitely watery, and I would bet that so were mine. “I thought you weren’t going to come” – “Well, I wasn’t, but I changed my mind.” Turns out, he did NOT know I was coming, he just misspelled ‘guy’ in his text, but he saw someone sitting next to Eric, and since he didn’t think Eric would be bringing his girlfriend and recognized the jacket, he knew it was me. I bought that thing in 2003 in Germany and wear it a lot. Maybe that was my sign to go buy a new one….

Anyway, it was so very good to see him again. We headed off the field, picked up his stuff in front of his ‘bay’, and then stood in line at the on-base Burger King for easily over an hour, before Phillip could eat the first fast-food burger and drink the first soda in over 9 weeks. We had time to hang out with Phillip until we had to drop him off at the field for the actual graduation part around 3 that afternoon, but we were not allowed to take him off the base. So we toured the PX, etc., until we had to take him back. By then, luckily, it had warmed up a little, but it still clearly was closed-shoes-and-socks-and-jacket weather. Since the actual graduation ceremony wasn’t until 5:30, I used the wait time (TWO HOURS) to take a nap on the backseat of the car. Eric said he couldn’t sleep due to someone snoring. I heard nothing. We sat back down on our bleachers around 4:30, and shortly after, it started to rain. It didn’t bother us too much, since the bleachers are covered, but the guys were all standing out there in the field, getting wet. We were hoping they would not call of the fieldside graduation. The alternative would have been indoors, but due to the size of the crowd, in shifts, and Foxtrott’s time would have been 8:00 PM. But we lucked out, the rain quit, and everything went according to plan, and we were able to take our freshly graduated little soldier with us.

We checked him into the hotel, went out for dinner, and stopped to get him the pack of Oreos and Dr. Pepper he’d been looking forward to, and then hung out in the hotel for a while. Friday morning, we had a small hotel breakfast, and then drove up and down ‘Two Notch Road’ in Columbia. There really isn’t anything much to do in this town that we could find. Phillip wanted to go to a Best Buy, and then we had lunch at Hooters. I feel sorry for those girls. They think they are all that, but I know first hand what happens to ‘all that’ 25 or so years later….. HA!!! Then we went back to Ft. Jackson, toured the PX and Commissary some more (I bought some marzipan – yummm), walked around the lake, and finally had to say good bye again so we could get to the airport for our flight out. Damn, I cannot wait to see the kid again.

The flight home was uneventful, but dear Continental, next time you decide I need to be padded down just because the darn underwire in my bra sets of your alarms, can I have that done by some young, tall, good-looking MALE employee, not some old woman? It’ll make my air travel experience so much more pleasant and memorable and might influence who I fly with in the future.

And now we’re back home. We picked Leia up from camp this morning. She doesn’t seem quite herself, but close enough. And I’m so glad I went. And as I write this, Phillip is on his way to Arizona for his AIT – and just found out that the start of it has been delayed until November 9th, and he’s hoping that maybe, maybe, while waiting for the training to start, he’ll be allowed to come home for a little bit. That would be too cool. But if not I’ll see him Christmas.

And btw., I’m not really a proud Army Mom at all. I am, however, extremely proud of Phillip, whether he’s in the Army or whatever. Just do what you want to do, do it well, and be happy. And I’ll forever reserve the right to suggest you may want to reconsider something when I feel it appropriate! That’s my job.