I left Japan on Saturday 22 July. My friend Charles drove me and Maddy all the way through Tokyo and to the airport. We took Sharron’s Corona, so all he had to do was drive. It was still nice of him. Once we arrived, I put Maddy into her crate and loaded her and all the luggage onto a cart. I told Charles to drive safe and we headed into the airport. My first stop was at the information booth to find out where to take Maddy. They gave me good directions and after following them up to the point of no return, Maddy and I headed outside to try and find her some grass. She did a great job in the airport and settled down after a few initial barks. I talked to her the whole time to let her know everything was ok. On the bottom floor, across the street, we found a very narrow, but useable strip. I mimed to the guards what I was going to do by showing them the poo bags I was carrying and they motioned that it was ok. After that excursion, we proceeded back into the shade to find a quiet place to sit for an hour. I played New Super Mario Brothers on my Nintendo DS (Thanks Sharron!) and entertained several dog lovers who were passing by. Many people wanted to say hello to the Inu (Japanese for dog) that day. We next headed up to the animal quarantine office and spoke with them. Surprisingly they all mostly spoke pretty good English. Going through the paperwork didn’t take very long and I soon had a multitude of stickers and forms taped to Maddy’s crate. We headed back down to the ticketing area and began waiting in line. Maddy was very well behaved until we got through the initial security checkpoint. All of the ticketing agents wanted to come out and say hello to her and she just wasn’t in the mood. They all said hello anyway while she whimpered and barked. I got all the paperwork in order and was ready to go. Maddy didn’t process as fast and stayed in the ticketing area for a good while after I’d left. She barked and barked and I could hear her all the way across the airport. It was a pretty sad sound to hear. Sharron met us in Atlanta. Maddy made it through without any problems at all. We were both very excited to see Sharron after several weeks apart. It was a happy reunion. We had an uneventful drive down to Montgomery where we dropped Maddy off at Sharron’s mom’s house, said hello to Parker and then checked in to the SOS hotel. It was nice to be in the states again. We had all day Sunday to just be with each other before school was to begin on Monday.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from SOS, but it turned out to be pretty demanding. I put in many hours reading material, writing papers, studying, doing physical fitness and having mandatory nights out with the class. Sharron was an awesome wife through it all and never complained once that she was neglected. I tried to spend as much time with her as I could, but that was mostly limited to the weekends. We did get a chance to go visit with her grandparents at their house on Lake Martin. That was a lot of fun and I really like her grandmother, she’s a popular lady for a good reason, she’s the best! SOS was really very uninteresting to talk about. Sharron would say that her least favorite part was the sport they made us play called Flickerball. It’s similar to ultimate Frisbee, but played with a small rubber ball. Many rules, no real sport to it, just follow the rules. Lots of down time during play and not much fun to be had. I did meet several good people that I’m sure I’ll run into again in this small Air Force.
Graduated from SOS on 25 August and we had wanted to leave for Atlanta immediately. Instead, the deployment office at Yokota had decided that I would be better off leaving from the states to Kuwait instead of returning to Japan first. This meant that I had to get all my medical, dental, weapons, and other clearances completed on our off days. I was able to get into a weapons class on Friday and then complete almost all of the rest on Monday. I still had to do one more thing on Tuesday, so we ended up leaving for Atlanta Tuesday afternoon. This was WAY later than we’d wanted. One of the things that was really hard to get done was getting my luggage back to Yokota. Sharron was flying on a military charter flight from Seattle to Yokota and they won’t let you take excess baggage, so we had to ship it. After exhausting all avenues I was told that the Air Force would not be paying for the shipment. Why they didn’t tell me this upfront is beyond me. Anyway, we headed to mailboxes etc and had them mail it for us. Total cost: $350. Ouch. It was pretty scary to ship all that stuff as I was no without any military uniforms of any kind. I was supposed to receive a shipment from Yokota (again at our expense) that had all my desert gear in it, but we didn’t know when that would be with the holiday weekend approaching. We stayed very busy all the way up to the weekend. My parents arrived on Wednesday and we immediately put them to work doing things around town. We had very little time and a lot to do before the reception on Saturday. Friday night was our first chance to have fun all week. We went out with 10 friends of ours (5 couples) to the Melting Pot for fondue. I think we were there for like 4 hours eating that night. Lots of fun, food, and discussion. Finally we were ready for the reception.
We woke up at a reasonable hour and ordered room service for breakfast. We’d decided to stay in a hotel on Friday and Saturday night to get into the spirit of the event. We watched some TV and just generally relaxed all morning. Around lunch we headed out to get Sharron and Amanda’s nails done. Amanda’s husband Christopher and I walked over to the comic shop during the process. :-) After getting her nails done, we headed back to the room for lunch and to get dressed. We again ordered room service (we love it!) and took our time getting ready. The reception was set for 6pm and we wanted to be there at 5. I think in the end we ended up being a few minutes late, but not too bad. The first thing we did was visit with the photographer. We had our pictures taken all over and around Sharron’s aunt’s house (where the reception was held). It was a lot of fun and really made it feel like we’d just had our wedding. Guests started to arrive at around 6pm as we’d expected. We expected between 50-60 and that was approximately what ended up showing. It was a wonderful evening. All the parents finally got to meet and both families really seemed to hit it off. We hired a DJ for the evening to help free up Sharron’s aunt from doing the MC duties so she could enjoy the party. He’d run speakers from the basement to the main floor so that he could always get everyone’s attention. The arrival was a lot of fun. It’s always nice to see people you don’t see very often. We then had a nice social hour where we got to talk to everybody and tell them all about our love for each other. We decided we wanted to make it as close to a real wedding reception as possible, so we had toasts. Sharron’s Dad was up first and he and her mom came up with a very beautiful one for us. My Dad went next and then the DJ opened the mic up for anybody else. It was a lot of fun. After I thanks everyone for coming, we headed into the dining room for the cake cutting. Sharron’s aunt had gone all out and made the cakes for us too! It was really fun to be able to do that part as it’s really very traditional and wedding-y. After these events, we headed downstairs for our first dance. We weren’t very on top of the “our song” business, so the DJ suggested “What a Wonderful World.” We figured it was a perfect fit and ran with it. It was really very romantic and both Sharron and I were all choked up. After the dance the reception became more informal and we just had a good time dancing, drinking and spending time with our guests. It was the 2nd best day of my life, right after the day I married Sharron. I love you Sharron!
We had only a few short days after the reception before we were both leaving…in opposite directions. Sharron was headed back to Japan and I was headed here to Kuwait. As my last post indicated, I was notified right before SOS that I’d be deploying to here for 122 days. That puts me here until right after Christmas. I’m ok with making sacrifices for the Air Force, I just didn’t realize that Sharron and my first Christmas together would be one of them. So here I am, in the desert again, although not in the same kind of harms way I was last time. My job is also not nearly as interesting. I’m doing the same job I had at Yokota when I first got there; I’m the executive officer to the operations (flying) group’s commander. It’s not a bad job, but I would rather being doing a communications job.
So that’s what’s been going on in my world for the past few months. My journal is blocked from here, so I probably won’t post as much as I did in Baghdad. Feel free to drop me a line though.
Website with our reception pictures: http://outtheroad.smugmug.com/Weddings
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