July 8th- 23th

The welcome home ceremony after a deployment is probably one of the coolest experiences you can have. Even just seeing soldiers being reunited with their loved ones on TV gives me a thrill as I think it does most people. I missed the last one when he came home from Afghanistan in '08 because we hadn't moved to Italy yet and it just didn't make sense to go and then come right back. I was there for the one in '05 after 13 months in Iraq. The excitement in the room (usually a gym) is overwhelming especially once they march in and stand there for a few minutes. You can actually lay eyes on your soldier. When they are finally released its a mob scene as everyone scrambles to find their loved one. That happy event was not to be for us, not this time anyway.
We got to Landstuhl around 2 in the morning after driving about 12 hours. I was exhausted and of course had a terrible headache. The hospital was basically deserted. I followed Spc Mix down a few halls until we found someone and asked him where Ward 10D was. When we got there Mike asked the nurses if I could see Kirby. They went to see if he was awake and then the nurse motioned for me to come down the hall. I had an increasing sense of dread the closer I got to the room. I just had no idea what Kirby would look like, how he would be, it was pretty scary. The room he was in was small, and there were two other guys in the room. Both Marines, both had been shot. Kirby was hooked up to a bunch of tubes. Not enough to warrant a lot of concern but an IV, a pain pump and a catheter. He was wearing a blousy hospital gown and his beard was coming in nicely from not shaving for a few days. He had dried blood on his wrists and his finger nails were dirty. He was high on morphine.

The following day was Kirby's surgery and the rest of the time was spent visiting him in the hospital, getting him to out-patient status, then breaking free entirely and heading home.

We didn't really take many pictures in the hospital but here are a few when we watched some world cup match. Kirby is pretty blind and the only glasses he had were the ones he was wearing when he got blown up, a pair of huge sunglasses.