My final entry for this excursion

The beginning and end of any deployment is hectic. You hurry up and you wait. You drag all your stuff. You may or may not eat at meal times and you may not be comfortable. Today was one of those days.

I woke up way before my alarm this morning. I might be a touch excited about going home. I showered and put the last of my things in my suitcase. I'm so happy that everything fits. I carefully packed my birch basket in some tshirts and taped up the priority mail box. Much safer than me trying to get it home. My bags are due at 0800 at the front door. I get there at 0801 and there are already several folks waiting. Maybe we are all a little excited.

The truck arrives and we load the bags. It will be just me and my backpack for the rest of the day. I check out of the hotel and join some friends at the restaurant next door. I have already had some MRE leftovers for breakfast. It is a little pricey to eat out here. I sit with them and enjoy my 2 dollar sprite. A treat for the last day. Actually it was free because my SRA picked up the tab.

She and I split from the group and walk up Shore Ave. The post office is open and I mail off my basket. I'm getting lighter by the minute now. We walk up the shore line and then turn inland for the Armory. There is a sheet of ice under the light layer of snow that feel in the early morning and I slip but don't fall numerous times. I have survived 15 days in Alaska and only fell once on the ice. I had been religious about wearing my yak-trax. If you do not know what they are google them. If you live in Arkansas or any place it ices, buy a pair on ebay. You will seriously not fall on ice or snow with these things on the bottom of your shoes. I have no idea why they are not wildly popular back home.

The armory is buzzing with people. I try to get on the internet for a quick email fix but it is already off. First they announce we are holding here until 1100. It's more comfortable than the hangar. Short time later, they announce that the C-130 has arrived early and we are leaving in 15 minutes. Oops. A couple of folks have decided to take a walk. They have obviously not done this before.

While waiting, I find the folks selling the operation coins. For civilians, we in the military have coins that signify our unit or a deployment or an important person. I have a collection of them in my living room. Sometimes you buy them and sometimes you are "coined". Coining someone means you give them the coin to recognize their hard work. I think the coin means more when you are coined. They only ordered 200 coins for the trip and there are 250 of us. They ran out pretty fast. They are now taking names and addresses and promise to mail them. I bought my coin the first day. I didn't expect to work with someone that I would like well enough to buy a second one. I decided a couple of days ago that I wanted to coin my SRA (senior Airman) for her hard work in clinic. I call her over and have her fill in the info. I pay for it before she can and explain that I appreciate her hard work.

Slowly we get moved to the hangar and it is not long before we are loading. We are doing it "hot" which means they keep the engine running. We enter the butt of the C-130 and find seats. Two hours later we are in Anchorage. Find your luggage and get on another bus. Transport to a local hotel until you catch your commercial flight home. We missed lunch somewhere in there but I didn't care.

I joined up with a couple of folks for a trip to Walmart for last minute essentials. Next, dinner at TGIFridays and a chance to eat fresh food again. I could have eaten anywhere and been happy. It was sad to hug them one by one and say good bye. You really bond with folks when you deploy and spend all your time together. I've made some good friends and look forward to keeping in touch.

My flight leaves in a couple of hours. Apparently it is popular to leave Anchorage at midnight to catch the morning connections in the lower 48. After 17 hours in the air and in airports I will be back in Little Rock. There is nothing like a deployment to make you appreciate home.

Until my next adventure.