AWOL?

We were happily expecting Darling Husband and Father to come home on Friday evening for the weekend from UFG.  He called me that morning and said he'd been to a meeting where the XO (second in command) of the whole exercise had declared that no one would be going home for the weekend, and that all such requests would be denied.  There was no real reason for this, especially considering there was a "pause ex" (pause in the exercise) for the weekend.  Dean had even made a point of having a fake weapon issued to him for the exercise so that he could come home (they have to wear all their combat gear and such when they leave their designated building during the exercise, and can't be running around Korea with a real weapon, nor can they "abandon" a real weapon there and come trotting home).  So, he said he was coming home anyway, and just wouldn't tell anyone in his unit about the XO's decree.  I, for one, have never had the nerve to do anything I wasn't supposed to (except maybe speed, which driving skills are coming in handy around here).

In high school, I literally lived across the street from the school.  Teachers would let me "run home" and grab something that I had forgotten from time to time.  On the last day of the school year, some students would just take off for the day, or not show up at all, which was fine with me.  But I didn't have the nerve.  My peers would ask me why I was even at school.  I just couldn't do it.  My parents had such an easy time raising me!  Why don't I have it so easy now???  The only prank I ever pulled was when I was in college.  I knew my younger brother was home alone one weekend so I called him up before 6am.  It rang a number of times then he said "HELLO-O???".  He had clearly been jolted out of bed.  I could have died laughing, but pleasantly asked how he was doing, yada yada.  I don't know if he even remembers it. 

Anywho, so to think of Dean coming home without authorization made me a little nervous.  But, he was coming with a major and a SFC in his unit.  So at least he wasn't the highest ranking person.  And apparently their own commander, who really isn't under the commander of the exercise, was all right with them coming home, so, I guess it was all on the up and up.  They rode a train, which took about two hours, then he got a cab from Seoul Station.  We reluctantly took him back to Seoul Station this morning before church where he met his traveling companions and headed back.  He said they sure didn't miss anything, and there didn't seem to be any reason for them to have gotten there as early as they did today.

Meanwhile on the home front, our stuff got here on Wednesday, and the place is a complete disaster.  I've implemented a KIP and HIP (Kyler and Hunter improvement programs, respectively) to get behavior around here under control, so Kyler ended up spending some time in his room the day after our stuff came to atone for some typically egregious public behavior, and he spent the whole time ripping open boxes and throwing the contents all about his room.  Part of the KIP is that he now has his own room, so the only rebel he can rouse is himself.  So, his bed wasn't even visible in his room, nor was there any getting to it from the door, so he ended up sleeping with me a couple of nights, until we were able to make a little headway in there.  Dean was stunned while here, and when saying our family prayer Saturday morning, was thankful "for all this stuff, that we love so much, everywhere we look".  What can I say?  He took all three boys for a few hours on Saturday so I actually got some stuff put away.