I talked to D yesterday morning.

The first thing he said was "I love you, and I'm going to try and come home.  I don't want you to do this by yourself".

Apparently there's a policy where he's at the personnel can take emergency leave.  Dunno for how long, but he said something about 2 weeks.  The military would fly him to the US, and then we'd have to pay for his tickets to St Louis...which would be about $300 according to Expedia.com.

There's also a chance that, if my family doctor and my surgeon think that I need longer term assistance at home....that D might get to come home, period.  This is a slim chance at best....but the emergency leave option is a distnct possibility.

See, before he deployed, we went to the command section and told them what was going on and what was likely to happen.  We covered our asses.  So, when I called the First Sgt on Friday and told him what was being planned he wasn't blindsided.

There was a time when neither D or I would have considered asking about his coming home from a deployment.  The mission would have come first, regardless of what we had going on.  However, we also learned along the way that always going above and beyond the call of duty is sometimes not the right thing to do.  The way D puts is is this:  when it comes time for him to retire, the military will shove him out the door with a handshake and a "thanks for all you did"..and that will be it.  The military isn't going to be there for him for the rest of his life, taking care of him everyday; after he's done his time they're not really going to give a fuck.  His family, on the other hand....well, if he takes care of us, we'll always be here for him.  We're going to be with him for the rest of his life.  So, sometimes he's going to put us first.

Like now.  Now, this summer, he's going to put me first.  Even if he doesn't get to come home, I'll know that he at least tried.

That makes me very, very happy.