Hurry Up and Wait

Well the big Deployment Day finally came.. and what an emotional roller coaster it was. Andrew was told to be on post for bag drop at 11:45 this morning. Our original plan was that he would drop me off at the airport at 10:30 for my flight at noon, but when he found out he didn't have a ride to post we decided it would be best to rent a car and for me to switch my flight until later in the day.

The drive into post was nothing short of miserable. As I drove Andrew made some calls to say his "see ya laters" (because this is NOT goodbye) to family and friends. I was sad for us to part ways, but hearing him saying bye to everyone over and over again was way harder than I thought I would be. I won't lie, I cried the whole 40 minute drive into Fort Knox. I couldn't even sit in the car when he called his nieces and nephews, it absolutely broke my heart, so I stopped for gas and to get lottery tickets inside the station. I was a wreck... as you can see in this God-Awful picture. Recorded for posterity's sake.

We got to Fort Knox and stopped for some to-go breakfast to eat before he boarded the bus. Little did we know that the Army had a lot of waiting in store for us. We both thought I would drop him off, he would board a bus and that would be that. NOPE. We had to wait in a line for him to sign out his gun (for about an hour) and while we were in line his First Sergeant came up to us and informed us that he was on Standby.

UGH.

Are you kidding me? To me that was actually more devastating than having to let Andrew go today. All the back and forth of "is he going? is he not going" was sure to send me into a tailspin for sure. Plus with my flight I didn't know what I was going to do. I was basically just 150% stressed about the whole idea of "standby". But as it turned out, it actually calmed me to know that he was about 90% sure he wouldn't be leaving until tomorrow. They told him not to even drop his bags until everyone else boarded the busses because they would have to see if there was room on the jets.

Once Andrew got his weapon we sat around in a cold warehouse for about two and a half hours before we all had to move about 50 yards to a new warehouse so they could stand in formation and do a roll call. (I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I don't know what this is called in the military, but I'm sure it's not roll call or attendance. All the emotions of the day are taking their toll on my mind) After that Tricia (his buddy, Bright's girlfriend- who we had been hanging out with all week) and I thought the guys would know if they were going or not, but when they came back we still didn't know. So we went back to the original warehouse (called a COF- Company Operations Facility) for more waiting in the freezing cold.

At some point we decided that we would never know if he was leaving or not in time for me to make my flight. I called Southwest and changed my flight to noon tomorrow. Such a good feeling to know Southwest has NO CHANGE FEES!

The hardest part of the day was seeing all the dads in uniform with their children. Most of the kids were too young to understand that this was their last day with Daddy for a long time, but it was still so heartbreaking. There were so many babies that were only a few months old. I know how hard a time Andrew is having leaving his family and me and especially his nieces and nephews for a year, I can't imagine how those dads must feel. It was horrible to watch.

We sat in the COF for another hour and a half and then we were told it was time for formation outside by the busses. They called the guys' names who were definitely leaving today and they boarded the busses. Then they told us that Andrew (and Bright and whoever else was on Standby) had to wait at the COF for another 2 hours until they found out if there was room on the jet or not. So the four of us and Bright's family waited for about another hour and then we went to the PX (because they said we just had to wait in a common area) to get something to eat and to wait around some more. Around 6 we decided to call it quits. The guys finally realized that there was no way for anyone to get a hold of them-- no matter where they were-- so we called it quits and all went home for the night.

We had big plans of going out to a club or something, but on the drive home Andrew and I realized how exhausted we were (he even fell asleep twice on the way home) from all the emotions of the day. When we got home we watched the second half of the Steelers Game (for the first time since I've known Andrew I actually rooted for the Steelers- because he was so sad when they were losing- as my deployment gift to him). He and I went out for sushi (the BEST sushi we've probably ever had) and now we are planning on just spending the rest of our bonus 24 hours together watching reruns of Entourage and Archer and just being happy to be together for another day! 

So I'm gonna get myself off of this blog and back into the arms of my soldier! I already called Southwest and changed my flight AGAIN for later in the day tomorrow. I'm dreading tomorrow, but today was such a blessing so I have to keep that in the back of my mind.