Just scrolling through my Facebook, I noticed several of my friends are watching their sons, daughters, nieces and nephews head off for the recruiter or for basic training. As school days end and some kids are suddenly concerned about their futures, that’s what happens. Believe me, I’m right there with all of you. <\/p>\n
I thought my mother was being silly when she saw me off at the Syracuse airport back in 1974 and she couldn’t even force a smile. But I understood when I saw my son off for basic training. It was a sense of pride that he was on the right path, that he’d come to a grown-up conclusion without me, that I was probably losing my son forever to the world. Of course, I had only a few minutes to impart all of the worldly advice I thought I might have forgotten to teach him through the years before that. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough time.<\/p>\n
And then, I went through it all again when he deployed to Afghanistan. He was going to be a combat veteran the next time I saw him and even though he was nearly thirty years old, he was still too young for it to happen to him. At least that time, we had some time to talk about what it was going to be like over a bottle of rum and some cigars on the balcony. When he came home, he was still the same guy who had left and he thanked me for preparing him for it. Sometimes dads do know what they’re talking about.<\/p>\n
Last year, he went to Korea. I took him to the airport from the Milblog conference after showing him off to all of my friends there. But after leaving him at BWI, it felt just as bad as it had the first time. I couldn’t go back to my friends, I just went home. So you can probably assume that it never gets easier.<\/p>\n
Tonight at Zero-dark-thirty, I’m picking him up at BWI again and I’m more excited than I’ve been all year. I’m more excited than I’ve been since I picked him up at BWI when he came back from Afghanistan. My rum-drinking\/cigar-smoking buddy is coming home before he heads off to Germany next week. Three years this time, and he’s going to the surgery unit at Landstuhl to be close enough to the Afghanistan War that he can make a difference – for him, but far enough away from it to stay safe – for me.<\/p>\n
It will break my heart to take him to the airport next time, but I’ll remember that when he comes home, there will be rum to drink and cigars to smoke and two old vets can reminisce about their lives which intersect in an experience that most people can only imagine or watch at the movies. Two old vets – a very proud father and his son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"