We here at DadWagon aren’t exactly milbloggers, much less fighting men. But we are, as you might have guessed by now, fathers. And it doesn’t have to be Memorial Day or one of those other official spare-a-thought-for-our-soldiers days to get a little verklempt for a dad who gets to come home from the murderous abroad and see his kids.
From what I presume is the top-ranked Northern Idaho/Eastern Washington sports-and-weather site, SWX Right Now, comes this pretty cool little reunion story from a Spokane Indians minor league baseball game. The team had told these twin 4-year-old girls and their mom that they were getting some kind of award, and that they should come down to the field in the middle of the fourth inning (no idea what award the mom thought they were going to get). Waiting for them instead on the third base line was their father, back from his THIRD TOUR of duty in Afghanistan. From SWX:
The celebration started early at the ballpark, as Sergeant Chris Weichman surprised his wife Abby and twin daughters, Gracie and Ruby in the middle of the fourth inning. Weichman had just returned from his third tour in Afghanistan at 6 a.m. that day. The young family received a long standing ovation from the crowd.
And in a side note: the Indians won the game 1-0.
Before you watch the video, just think about that: three tours in an unconquerable land filled with insurgents who never sleep and would love nothing more than kill you before breakfast. It doesn’t much matter how you feel about the war. That is insane. That is so tough on families. I’m headed to Russia next week for another story and I am already feeling, as I sometimes do, a twinge of self-pity for the time I won’t spend with my kids, for the added burdens on the home when I’m away. But deployment, multiple deployment, multiple warzone deployment: that’s the rough stuff. I hope this guy and his daughters get a little breather.