Welcoming the Troops

And, then truly "Sending Them Home"

by Sarah Smiley
 
            
            
This morning, I joined the Maine Troop Greeters at Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine, which is the place where international flights bringing troops to and from points abroad arrive first in the United States. It is also the last place on US soil that many troops see before heading overseas. Several times a day, I hear the jets filled with troops flying overhead because my house is just one mile away from the airport, and when I do, I think, almost reflexively, about all the times my own military husband has left and come home again. I know there is a wife somewhere who said goodbye to her husband that morning, then came home to a towel still wet from his shower and his shoes kicked off at the closet door...so many reminders that the person who is now several time zones away was literally just there with you.

But that's just when I see the jets headed east.
           
When I see a jet coming the other way, returning to Bangor before taking off again to take the troops home, I feel a spontaneous rush of excitement. I think about the wife who is counting down the hours until her husband arrives. I picture her putting on twenty different outfits to find just the right one, then combing and re-combing her children's hair and realizing how much they have grown.
           
The Troops Greeters, an all-volunteer organization, gathers at the airport day or night to welcome troops on these flights. But they (the troops) aren't really "home" yet. Yes, they are in the US, but they still have a ways to go before arriving, in the case of this morning, in Colorado, where their loved ones wait.
          
"After 14 months away, I can't wait to get back on that plane and go home to my family," one young soldier said to me this morning, then he quickly excused himself to a corner of the lobby to use his cell phone. I knew he was calling his wife. I remember receiving those phone calls from Dustin: "I'm here! I'm actually in the United States! 

And in a few hours I will be home!" My heart would flutter so hard; I'd think it was going to jump right out of my chest. This morning, I knew there was a wife in Colorado feeling the same thing. And I couldn't have been happier for her. Because I know that later tonight, when I am getting in bed to go to sleep, another jet will fly above my house and it will be going the other direction.