ARMY HOMECOMING

Yesterday was a beautiful day.

It was beautiful for many reasons, one of which was the International Woman’s Day. Something I have started to tell everyone about since my first year of college back in 2002. I hoped one day this tradition will be celebrated here in the United States and I couldn’t be more happy to wake up yesterday to so many women celebrating each other no matter what field or profession they are in. After all, as Beyonce said: “Who run the world? Girls!”

Yesterday was also (what felt like) the first real day of spring here in Texas. With the sun out and warming the skin, temperatures in the high 70s it was a day that put a smile on everyones face. Dresses, shorts, flip flops kind of weather and a beginning of something absolutely beautiful.

And of course nothing could beat the army changing a homecoming time (yet again) to daytime instead of the middle if the night. Even with the delays it still felt like the best decision. And nothing could beat the smile on Kirsten’s face when I met her at Cooper Field a few minutes before the ceremony was to begin.

She was getting her husband back from a rotation in Europe, with her 5 month old son in her arms. Just to think that she was alone at the end of her pregnancy, alone giving birth, and alone for the first (almost full) 5 months of her baby’s life - that must’ve been unthinkable hard. Thankfully now it was all to be in the past. Months of waiting and hoping and being anxiously nervous were now over.

Welcome home PVT Swompe! You have been missed!