Our second deployment ~ 2005 - 2006

In June that year our daughter was born and I was lucky enough to have my husband there with me. I can't relate to those who give birth on their own and while I feel for them, I'm grateful I didn't have to do it without Darrell.

Four months after Pookie's (that's her nickname) birth he got deployed again. Of course, every thing that could go wrong, went wrong!! Finance had screwed us and the brakes on my car needed to get fixed. Just one thing after the other. I'm so thankful for the help we received from The Home Front Cares, Inc., which is based out of Colorado Springs,CO. They were a blessing.

That Christmas I took the Greyhound back to New Jersey to visit our families. I had the boys, 5 and 6 at the time, and Pookie who was 6 months old. She was strapped to my chest for over two days with one of those carriers while we traveled half-way across the country. The "adventure" was so horrible!! LOL... I dreaded the day I had to get back on that bus to go back home. It was pure hell.

For about month before Darrell came home, my car kept getting a flat tire. First one side, than the other. I thought it was good to go until the day came for his home coming ceremony. I was upstairs in the bathroom doing my hair and looked out the window. I couldn't believe that my tire looked flat....AGAIN!! So I ran downstairs and out the back door. Sure enough, it was flat! I had to be there in 2 hours to get my husband and here I was with a flat tire. The guy at the shoppette brought a portable air pump out to my house and pumped up my tire so I could drive it to down the street. They had several customers ahead of me and I was running out of time. The same guy had done the work on the tire before and took it right in, ahead of the others and I was so happy. He got my tire fixed and I got to the home coming ceremony with a few minutes to spare!

For those who have done home coming ceremonies, you know they play music for the soldiers to come "marching" in to. My heart stopped when the music started and I almost forgot to breathe. Once they started coming through the doors, I began to sweat and my heart picked up pace so fast that I thought I was going to pass out. You would have thought I was about to meet LL Cool J or something! (LL Cool J is the man, so I used him for an example lol) I finally saw him, and as bad as this is going to sound, I wanted to push the kids aside and grab and not share him at all! Of course I didn't and let them get their hugs in first, but it crossed my mind.

Our second deployment wasn't as long as the first, but it still sucked just as much! I would have gladly traded his 3rd deployment of 15 months for it though. =)