Karl and I stayed home on New Year's Eve. We were travelling to St. Augustine and Jacksonville the next day and wanted to get an early start.
New Year's Day arrived cold and rainy. We had pounding rain and wind almost the entire way to St. Augustine. We visited the lighthouse and went to a few of the shops while we were there. Then we headed to Jacksonville. We went to Roy's for dinner. It was excellent!!
January 2 came to quickly. It was freezing! Only 30 degrees when we woke up and by the time we got to the pier(8 AM) the wind had picked up and it was 36 degrees. Then the long slow process of deployment began. It is a very slow moving process, sort of like a dance, a long slow, painful dance. Everyone has to be been in place and things happen in a certain order. The Captain came ashore around 10:15 or so to meet and greet the families and then at 10:30 the sea and anchor detail was set. Shortly thereafter the "brow"(I call it the gangplank) was removed from the ship. It is at this time that any and all hope that the deployment would not happen evaporated. Then the word was passed over the 1MC to "man the rails" This is when any man or woman that has family on the pier( or anyone else that would like to do so) has the opportunity to stand along the rails of the ship and see their families one last time. This is the hardest part, your service member is almost close enough that you can still see them and almost hear what they are saying, but not close enough to touch them. Then the lines are removed and the ship slowly floats away from the pier. It seems like it happens in slow motion. Then the tugs start their job of turning the ship around, facing out of the basin. Then the ship slowly fades away into the horizon. I am convinced that the whole deployment process was designed to torture people, I don't know if it was ment to torture the men and women on the ship or the families on the pier. I'm sure that there are some people out there that don't feel this way, but I think if the process was faster, it wouldn't be so hard. Plus while you stand there waiting for the ship to sail away, these types of thoughts pass through your mind a time or two. By the time the ship sailed away, I was frozen. It was 11:15 AM EST.
My mom was waiting for me at my house when I got there. Just to keep me company while I adjusted to Karl not being home. We did some shopping and some more today. Mom bought us the most beautiful piece of luggage for our trip to Korea. It is the Liz Clairborne Chelsea Collection Wheeled City Bag. I love it, love it, love it. Thanks Mom!
One more day off then its back to work!
I've been following your blog for a while. My husband and I are also adopting from Korea through LL. We went on the list in Aug. '09.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting about the deployment. I've never been around military stuff too much, so I had never heard about the looooooong process of saying goodbye. That sounds miserable. I liked your assessment that it seems like a way to torture military personnel and their families.
Anyway, hope you are adjusting to life alone for a few weeks/months and that you guys receive a referral quickly upon your husband's return. How long will he be gone?
Hi Dena,
ReplyDeleteKarl will be gone for about 6 months or so. This is our fourth deployment, so it gets easier.