A Long-Delayed Homecoming

They are daring to hope. As the hours count down, Jodi Velotta and other U.S. Army wives are beginning to think that this time it might really be true—their men are headed home from Iraq.

"It's a lot to know that the day is coming and I didn't wake up to that e-mail saying, ‘We've been extended,’” says Jodi, whose husband, Capt. Brad Velotta, commands a company in the 4-23 infantry battalion of the 172nd Stryker Brigade, based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska. “I'm like a kid everyday, thinking ‘One day closer, one day closer.’”

Brad just called to say he was starting his trip home on Thanksgiving Day. They’ve had their hopes dashed before, of course—in late July, when the families were told the 172nd would be extended another four months in Baghdad after a year’s deployment in Mosul. Jodi has tried to make the waiting more bearable by going on a cleaning binge at her house. "It's kind of like having a baby, I'm nesting,” she says. She’s also preparing their two kids, Sophia, 3 1â„2, and Hudson, 2, psychologically for Brad’s homecoming. “Now everything is about Daddy. Sophia will be in the car and if a boy song comes on the radio she'll say, 'That's my daddy's song,’ and if it's a girl song she wants to know if Daddy likes that song. It's all about what Daddy likes.”

Tamara Bell has her turkey and all the fixings ready in the freezer—and that’s where they will stay until she can share a Thanksgiving meal with her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Edward Bell, when he gets home from Baghdad. “I've tried to have holidays before when he was deployed and it just isn't the same,” she says. “There's a real emptiness.”

Tamara hasn't seen Edward since the couple's son Nicholas was four days old, and even then, he was just home on a two-week leave from his duty with the 172nd. Last week, Edward called to say he was flying to Kuwait on Thanksgiving Day. They both know—as do all the military families—that their best-laid plans could be upset by the Pentagon’s ever-shifting projections for U.S. troop strength in Iraq, and the ever-changing political debate in Washington. But with luck, Tamara is hoping that Edward will be home in time for Nicholas's first birthday on Nov. 30. “We're just both sprinting toward the finish line at this point,” says Tamara, who adds that her husband has gone through periods of despondency during the 172nd's 15-month deployment and unplanned extension.

After twelve years as an Army wife, Tamara, 32, knows that reunions, no matter how joyful, can be fraught with tension. “In the very beginning, it’s a honeymoon period,” she explains. “You are so happy for 1-2 weeks. Everything is beautiful, wonderful, great. That lasts until your first argument, then it’s ‘Whoa we’ve changed.’ It goes from the silly arguments like how to empty the dishwasher to total changes of how I’ve changed, how he’s changed. Your beliefs, values. You’ve grown for a year, but not at the same rate. You don’t always speak over everything over the phone in 10-15 minutes. You go through lots of changes.”