Welcome Home

It seems that our family has most of the military branches covered. Dad was in the Navy, Keith was in the Army and Ronald was in the Air Force. I love all the stories. Did Harold/Gene ever go into the military? As a teenage girl, it was nice living in a Navy town. There were a lot of good looking sailors around. Both LaDonna and I married Navy men. I married a career Navy man. David retired after twenty years of service. We were married for eighteen years of that.
It was great when David was stationed in places that I could be with him, but there were also times that the military separated us. It was always a thrill for wives, children and girlfriends to go meet their military men when they came back home after bring separated from their families. When Dad came home from his military service after the war, this is what he said happened.

When I got back to the United States after the war, I was stationed on Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay. I had to wait for my turn to take a train to Norman, Oklahoma so that I could get my discharge. Every morning I had to report to base and if my name didn’t come up, I was allowed to leave the base until the next day. I would go home to Mother’s in Alameda. Each morning, I would take a bus back to Treasure Island hoping my name would be called. That went on for a very long week. Finally, my name came up.
When I arrived at the base in Norman, Oklahoma, the guard at the gate gave me a message to go to the main gate. I was told the guard there wanted to talk to me. I had no idea that the main gate guard was Uncle Oscar, Wanda’s uncle. To my great surprise, Wanda and Ronald then stepped into my view. Wanda had found out when I was going to arrive in Norman and came from Tulsa on the bus to meet me. What a wonderful surprise that was.
The next day I was discharged from the Navy and we went back home to Tulsa where Wanda’s parents lived.

The End. No, I guess it was only the beginning of our growing up years as a family. Judy