What Was Your Favorite Memory of Returning Home After a Long or Temporary Deployment? What Made This So Special?:

The Freedom Bird was only an hour from landing on American soil. My mind raced from scenes of death and the sounds of helicopters to visuals of life and sounds of crowds cheering at a Yankees game. I was returning from a one-year tour as an Army infantry soldier in Vietnam. My next flight was a domestic flight to my parent’s home in Connecticut. I was 24-years-old and single. I visualized my seat assignment. In my mind, I was seated between two college coeds for the 3,000-mile flight home. With excited anticipation, I boarded and looked for the imaginary coeds. Instead, in my aisle were two nuns. I concealed my disappointment. One of them asked me what I missed most while I was in Vietnam. My response wasn’t profound; besides my family and friends, I missed taking showers with lots of soap and hot water and waking in the morning to the smell of bacon and brewed coffee and eating a leisurely breakfast of pancakes lathered in butter and maple syrup. Simple things. Maybe there had been divine intervention; it was an unexpected encounter. They were two strangers who helped me transition to civilian life. The nuns were wonderful seatmates–nonjudgmental and excluding love and compassion. Special things are sometimes spontaneous and happen when you least expect them.