Welcome Home, Honey!
Ways others spouses said ‘I missed you.’
by Rosemary O’Brien
There are many creative ways to welcome your spouse home from deployment. Some people write, “Welcome Home!” in the snow with food coloring. Others insert plastic cups into a chain link fence and spell out the words. We asked people around the country to tell us about some of the more creative ways they welcomed a spouse back after a long (or short!) deployment and here is what we heard.
What Sarah did:
Navy spouse, Sarah Kyler, is also active duty Navy and in the past, she has often been deployed at the same time as her husband. Her husband’s most recent deployment was the first of the family’s deployments that she was actually home to welcome him back. This was also the most recent homecoming since the birth of her daughter, Rebecca. When her husband, Cmdr. Brent Kyler, returned, they decided to give him a simple welcome home.
“This is the first deployment that I have actually been home to witness,” she said. “We painted a sheet poster and hung it from the front of our house. We also lined the sidewalk with flags to complement the red and white flowers I had planted that spring. It was certainly not as clever as many of the surprise homecomings you see on the evening news, but it was perfect for us.”
As Cmdr. Kyler put it, "To pull up the house, which was already a welcomed sight, and to see a sign as big as our yard …I was surprised.”
It doesn’t matter if you go big or small with your welcome home plans, your Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine will be excited and happy to be home. So welcome your spouse home from deployment any way you want. He or she will appreciate whatever you do. They’re just happy to be back.
What Katie did:
Katie Dyer built a 6-feet-tall welcome home snowman for her husband Paul Dyer, who is a member of the Oregon National Guard and returned from a year in Afghanistan.
“My husband came in home in December 2007,” Dyer said. “The day before he arrived, we had a huge snowstorm that threatened to delay his arrival. To burn off the nervous energy while I waited to hear if he would arrive on time, I built a life-sized snowman. Then, on a whim, I put my husband's uniform on him and attached the sign I had made to hold at the airport.”
When she left to pick her husband up at the airport, she was unsure if the snowman would survive.
“My husband laughed when we pulled up and the snowman was waiting at the end of the driveway,” she said. “The best part is that we live on a very busy street, and everyone who passed was honking and waving and giving us the 'thumbs up.' It really made me feel like they appreciated Paul's service.”