Not your normal Easter weekend

This past weekend was Easter, but it didn't really feel like it.

All of the troops getting ready to deploy to Kosovo for KFOR10 were bused to Columbia, Mo., from training locations across the state for a departure ceremony at the Hearnes Center. The buses gathered at Stadium and U.S. 63. From there, they were given a police escort and were also accompanied by the Patriot Guard Riders to the arena.


My family came, plus Grandma Schad, Melissa and Uncle Rodney. There were no chairs on the arena floor and I thought that surely they wouldn't make them stand. Maybe they would march in, but surely they wouldn't have to stand. But the band played and the soldiers marched in. They just kept coming and coming and coming...I knew that it was to be a large deployment, but it wasn't until I saw them all -- all of them lined up on the floor, standing at attention -- that it really began to sink in how many were going.

I gave up pretty quickly on the thought of picking Jason out, but John found him in the sea of gray-green, amid more than a thousand soldiers. I zoomed in on him with my lens when they changed their patches from the Missouri bear to the Phoenix rising from the flames. It was a nice ceremony. Later, we all went to eat. The portable ID machine was available, so I had mine done. It saved me a trip to Jeff City.


*As a side note, Jason and I discovered that Starbucks does not serve cheesecake. Apparently every Starbucks I have ever entered has been affiliated with Barnes & Noble and has therefore been supplied with delicious goodness from the Cheesecake Factory. A normal Starbucks does not have cheesecake in their establishment.


On Sunday, Jason and I went to church and then played around until we had to meet the buses at 4:30 p.m. No tears this time...at least not while Jason could see.