From Dachau to the next part of our story is a whirlwind that encompassed 5 years and my husband and I falling in love and getting married. 3 months after our wedding we came down on orders for "Europe". 2 days after that, we found out we were expecting our first child.
What that means is "you're going somewhere in Europe". It doesn't mean you get to pick where you go, but you're going, so go get your passport, vaccinations, and prepare to remove every ounce of dirt from everything you've ever owned so your household goods clear customs.
4 months after that we were getting on a plane going....somewhere. We gave our fish to the guys that moved us as a gift and a bunch of other stuff went away or into storage and across the ocean we went.
After we got off the plane we went to what could best be called a "sorting facility". My Army husband went into the building to get his orders and tell me which bus we were taking me, the dog, and the cat on to travel to our new installation. He came back out smiling from ear to ear. He'd been reassigned to the exact location he'd been at the last time he was in Europe. We were going somewhere familiar (to him) and even better, we were going to be staying in Germany. I was ecstatic!
After one L-O-N-G bus ride we arrived at USAG Schweinfurt and were shuffled off the bus into a small room where we got our speedy class and afterwards hopped into the European version of a mini van escorted by a tall black gentleman who helped us load our luggage into that backseat. He took one look at me and said, "you're pregnant". Ummm...yup. Kinda hard to hide that at 5 months...
The next words he said shocked me to my core. He turned to my husband and said, "you need to send her back. Now."
Say what?!??!! I've been dreaming of living in this country my ENTIRE life! I'm not leaving now!!!!! My husband looked at the panic in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was going on. They were speaking "Army" again and as a new military wife I couldn't keep up. It was like listening to someone talking half in English and half in a foreign language. The Sergeant dropped us off at our quarters for the next few weeks until we found housing and after climbing 4 flights of stairs I flopped on the couch in our temporary housing utterly exhausted and completely confused.
My husband came and sat down beside me and said, "it's your choice. We can keep you here or you can go home, but I won't be here for very long. We're scheduled to deploy into Iraq in two weeks."
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