On March 23rd my lil brother left for the Army. I haven’t written a lot about it – ok I haven’t written a lot about anything (the past few months have flown by) so I will try to condense it in one post. It was definitely an interesting ~16 weeks of adjusting to him being gone like that for sure. I think my “coping “ mechanism was focusing more on the girls because until I would see him like at family weekend and then again at graduation it wouldn’t hit me how much I was really missing him being around too. Anyway, the first few weeks were interesting watching the girls adjust and interpret what was really going on.
You see they really did not get the impact that he was actually leaving, because when they said goodbye he was just getting in the car with Aunt Kylie, Granny and Grandpa and the next day they just came home without him. Maddie's first take was that the Army was a weekday job and Uncle Justin would come home on the weekends. The very first Saturday she found out that wasn’t gonna happen. “Oh,” was her exact response as she looked out the window of the car and contemplated what I had just told her. We did not know what Lindsleigh was thinking because at 15 months she couldn’t really tell us and did she really notice.? YES SHE DID. Two weeks into it Kylie was showing Moma a picture on the computer of Justin and said “there’s Uncle Justin” and L just about jumped out of my arms to look at the door of Moma’s house that we all come in and out thinking he was coming in. So yes she knew he was gone.
So finally we made it to Week 9 of training but week 11 of being gone and we were able to travel to Ft. Benning for Family Day. The girls were ecstatic. When we first got there I think L was in disbelief we were really going to see Justin she just stared at him at first.
Maddie was excited – she finally got a PT shirt just like Uncle Justin and an Army “costume” just like him too. (The poor Army their terminology will be butchered by the time M gets finished with it.) He even taught her to salute. All in all a great 2 days. Neither one really liked taking him back to the barracks but we promised we would be back in 5 weeks so Maddie and Aunt Kylie started another countdown.
Finally the countdown was over and came graduation – July 8th and 9th and the girls were ready to go again. When we got to the barracks Thursday morning for the Turning Blue ceremony, there were guys in training doing sit-ups and of course they were saying up-down-up-down. Daddy was toting L through the sand pit that we have to park in and he said she started chanting right along with them. Up-down is her favorite game. The Turning Blue Ceremony is were an Infantryman receives the blue cord that they wear on their shoulder of their uniform.
The next morning was the graduation. Graduation was very neat, of course M loved the band and there was also an infantry demonstration, complete with blank booms off in the woods and the sounds of rounds going off. The girls were not scared at all. I guess after fireworks they were not phased -to be honest there were some adults that acted way sillier and goofy about the noise than children did. M was just fascinated that they had pink smoke.
I have to give the Army very much credit on a hot, muggy July, Georgia morning they did not keep us out there very long. The entire graduation was right at an hour for two companies. So after a good pass in review ....
They were graduated and they girls got to give Uncle Justin his "Ranger" the bear they made with Aunt Kylie for him -
The girls had lots of fun prissing around that morning in their dresses that DeDe made for them. They even marched around the graduation field while we waited on Justin after things were over.
And that pretty much sums up the trips to Ft. Benning. Except M keeps wanting to know when are we going back. She loves going to the museum and the PX.
1 comment:
This is so adorable I love it...:)
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