Emergency Leave!!

We were notified in Mid April that S's mother was expected to pass-away with in the next 10 days. So we were granted Emergency Leave and the 10 of us were on a space-available military plane on 21 April bound for the West Coast. Said military hop was scheduled to be-bop all over the Pacific We would spend the night in at Okinawa, Guam and Hawaii before finally arriving at Travis AFB, California.

Our first stop was Kadena AB, Okinawa. We had a total blast there. We have some really good friends that still live there and we got together with them. Also, the new owner of our 10-passenger van was nice enough to let us borrow it so we even had wheels. We went out to our favorite restaurant Kitakaisen and then over to the J's house for a bon-fire. We got onto the plane the next morning and landed in Guam where we were only supposed to be there for 17 hours. That's where the trouble started. There was a submarine that came into port for a crew swap-out. They had contracted with an air carrier to take them to the West Coast but the carrier went bankrupt. So that dumped about 150 sailors into the space-A system. We were top priority since we were on Emergency Leave and we were manifested all the way to the plane's destination. Technically, they were not supposed to be able to bump us off the plane but bump us they did. I guess the sub commander was ticked because the people at the terminal were treating them as space-A and not space-required passengers so he went up his chain of command and they ended up canceling the orders for the plane and reissuing them. Now the plane's sole mission was to transport these sailors to the West Coast. If this wasn't bad enough they kinda jacked us around telling us that we were still on the plane. We tried to get on an earlier plane and were even boarded (by this time it was 2:00 am) and they had engines started. Our hearts sank when they shut the engines down and announced that there was a mechanical problem and they were out of duty-day (which means that they were required to go into crew rest). They deplaned us and took us back to the terminal. They never took us off the list for the flight that the sailors were trying to take over so we waited for that one. They did not let us know that we were being bumped until about 4:30 am and by that time it was S that was mad. I had taken all 8 kids into the USO, found a dark room with carpet and just had everyone lay down on the floor. It wasn't the most desirable scenario but at that time just about any semi-flat surface would have done the trick. The kids were out cold within seconds.

After we got bumped we decided we had to get out of there. We were all exhausted and had just spent all day and night in the terminal twiddling our thumbs waiting for this plane. S talked the driver of one of the Navy buses into taking us to the Pacific Island Club to sleep. Not only did he agree to take us but agreed to come pick us up again later that day and take us back to the terminal. The Pacific Island Club is a luxury resort on Guam and is amazing! The Military has contract rates with them and we pay less than half of what they usually charge per night for rooms as well as buffets etc. and that includes entrance to all of the attractions on the property. This place had water parks, pools, canoes that you could rent and paddle around the little man-made river, they even had a salt water aquarium that you could scuba dive or snorkel in. We weren't there long enough to do hardly anything. We walked into the one room that we rented for the 10 of us and flopped down wherever there was a flat surface. There were bodies everywhere! When we woke up we had about an hour and a half to kill so we went to one of the water parks and the kids canoed a little. It was a nice break.

We ended up getting on the same plane that had had mechanical problems the night before. It was interesting because this was a big C-17 cargo plane and they had a big metal shipping container anchored to the floor with 3 large chains on each corner of it along with 2 large wooden 2 door lockers (they looked like double-door outhouses), and a double-axle trailer with a mini sub on it (my boys thought that was record-cool). We sat in webbing chairs that folded down along the fuselage. This wasn't too bad but they couldn't regulate the heating very well and didn't have enough blankets (airline type) so we froze our keisters off for 8.5 hours.

We got onto a KC-135 in Hickam AB, Hawaii that took us to Travis AFB, CA. So all told, including the 10 hour drive from Travis AFB to Idaho it took us 5 days...we left Osan on Monday which was Sunday in the States) and stayed the night in Okinawa (had a blast there!!!) , 24 hours in Guam, 12 hours in Hickam, stayed the night at Travis and got to Idaho at around 1:00 am on Friday. It took us about 3-4 days before we could tell you what day of the week it was. :-)

S's mother passed away Sunday morning and we were glad have been able see her before it happened. It was a beautiful morning and very peaceful. All of the sons and their wives were there within about 45 minutes of her passing.