Sarah agreed to come with me so on January 25, we loaded up her Corolla with all our stuff and Katelyn and all her baby stuff and headed for Louisville (well, Elizabethtown to be exact). The plan was to drive a very long day and stay in Nashville. As we were coming in West Memphis, Arkansas, it was snowing and the visability was cruddy AND the roads didn't look so good. We weren't going to make it to Nashville until after midnight on good roads, and these roads weren't good! So...as much as I didn't want to pay for two hotel rooms on the same night (we already had one reserved in Nashville) and as much as I really wanted to be in Nashville the next morning, we got a room in Memphis and spent the night.
The weather was much, much better the next morning, the roads had been cleared, and we could see what we were up against. We figured out the time frame of where we needed to be when, didn't really push it, left, and were making really good time. Then we talked to Rachel on the phone who told us that Louisville was in the EST---they were an hour ahead of us. I thought because Louisville was fairly much directly north of Nashville, they were in the CST as well. UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! There went any cushion we had. We had a nice drive the rest of the way, though we didn't stop for lunch, and I made up at least a half hour of our lost hour of time. We had food in the car for Kate, and we were going to be eating a fairly early dinner as part of the graduation festivities. The drive was beautiful with the new fallen snow flocking the trees that bordered both sides of the roads.
Well, we made it to Elizabethtown with time to get ready and leave for Ft. Knox and be there the TWO hours ahead of the dinner to go through security, etc.---until we had trouble following the directions to our hotel. The Daileys, who were meeting us there, were on their way to the base when we pulled into the parking lot. I don't think I've ever unloaded a car and changed clothes so quickly.
We were a little concerned knowing about the waiting and the red tape we had gone through to get onto Lackland AFB for Mike's graduation, but Ft. Knox was a breeze comparatively. We got there in plenty of time and waited and waited and waited. Luckily, the soldiers got there a little ahead of schedule which gave us more time to visit with Matt. Because there were 11 of us, we sat in a room off to the side of the main banquet hall They had set up long banquet tables to hold larger family groups in that room. This wasn't a problem as there was only one short speech that night, and we had the option to go stand and listen to it in the other room or just listen to the sound which was piped into our room.
Here's a few fun scenes from that night; first, in the dining hall at the Ft. Knox Leaders Club from before, during, and after the dinner:
The soldiers had to go back to their barracks just before nine. After they left, Sarah, Katelyn, and I waited for the photographer to finish Matt's prints. As we were trying to leave the base in the dark, we took a wrong turn, and toured way more of Ft. Knox than we planned. Actually, we were totally lost for awhile. Kate was so tired that she started to cry, really cry, and made herself sick! TRAUMA! DRAMA! We finally made it back to the hotel.
The next morning we had to leave bright and early so we could be there for the graduation ceremony. We only got to watch Matt for a few minutes, then he was off the stage, they marched the whole group out when the program was done, and then shipped them back to the barracks to check out. In the meantime, they gave us the opportunity to check out a Humvee and a Bradley tank. There's a good chance that Matt will drive a Bradley if he goes to combat (which I hope never happens), so we were interested in seeing it.
Before we knew it, it was time to go to the barracks for what we thought would be a quick good-bye before Matt shipped out to Fort Benning, Georgia. It was bitter cold, and the kids were chilled to the bone so everybody waited in the car for me to find out what the details were as we could see a crowd of parents and no soldiers. After questioning several groups of parents (you couldn't hear anything that the commanding officer was saying from the front steps), one told me that if we had things to give to our sons, we needed to be ready to hand it to them as they walked to the bus---no visiting time! NONE! I had to beeline it back to the car, grab Matt's computer and backpack that Falicia had sent, and run back to the waiting crowd. As I got there, I saw this:
Somehow in the all the masses off to the right of this picture, Matt came out of nowhere, said, "I've got to go!", took his things as I gave him a quick "half-hug" (the backpack and the computer bag were in the middle of us), and I told him good-bye and that I loved him. Back in the car, I had a major "mommy moment". I had just put my son on a bus in a nano-second. That bus was taking him to Fort Benning , and I was leaving for Switzerland in less than a week. I very possibly might not get to see him before he is deployed, and then... The thoughts of what could happen were too real. I was devastated. I cried, and I don't cry too often (unless I'm teaching seminary). In addition, I was angry at the army for the way that they handled things, etc. We had been told that there would be little time to visit on Thursday, but what happened was so abrupt, too abrupt.
The rest of the kids didn't even get to say good-bye. We had already checked out of the hotel, and it was lunch time. We stopped at a surprisingly good Mexican restaurant, and then we were off to our next stop---Knoxville, Tennessee. We were so grateful that we had been able to spend time with Matt on Wednesday night and be their for all the festivities. Matt was a full-blown soldier, the real deal. He was really "in the army now".
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