Army Times

WELCOME HOME NICK!!

Emblazoned on a large white banner that was strewn across the front of my grandmother’s house, almost forming a smile in union with the windows, it looked atrociously out of place against the backdrop of the Italian Grandmother House. Everything else was so perfectly ordered: the plants on the short and long sides of the small yard, the hedge surrounding it, and the ubiquitous Madonna statue. The banner was out of place, but for the best of reasons. It was love from the hearts of my family.

I was embarrassed. I was being welcomed home from an Air Force Base in Texas where I had just completed my training. WELCOME HOME banners were for people coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, not from Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training in Missouri and Texas, respectively.

Whenever I visited home during the holidays, I would go to several family homes and see people who had loved me my entire life. When I came home on leave from Iraq, I was cherished.

I was in the Army for six years, with two of those years spent in Iraq. The longest I went without being home was just over a year, since my second deployment had no R&R leave. I was stationed at Fort Meade in Maryland for my last couple of years, so I went home pretty often. Round-trip flights for under $100 made long weekends an easy decision, and the Celtics and the NBA playoffs helped me time my leave.

I don’t remember what I did when I got home after my military contract ended.