So, last Friday was my mom's retirement. We had the whole family in from CA, so it was awesome to see everyone.
The ceremony was awesome. I couldn't keep it together though. I cried through the whole thing. I'm so incredibly proud of my mother, and what she went through the past 28 years as a soldier, and everything that she's sacrificed to make this work. I don't have the perfect family, not by a long shot, and she was gone a lot. But she taught me most of all that you fight hard for what you love, and you never give up on it. It was really powerful to hear the officers talk about how she never let them forget what the effects of their decisions would be on the NCO, and how she was always fighting for what the NCO needed. It was wonderful to hear how much my mom was loved and appreciated not only by those that she worked for, but also those who worked for her. I can't tell you the number of times I'd already heard how much she cared about her soldiers. And how much I saw. It was just different to sit and listen to other people say the same thing.
The hardest moment of the entire ceremony for me though was the presentation of a painting. It was a painting of the first battle in the first gulf war. And it was on the coattails of that battle that mom was activated to be deployed. 8 days before my first birthday. It just so happened (I swear I didn't plan it) that I was wearing the bracelet she brought back from the Gulf for me 21 years ago. She had my name engraved in Arabic on it, and the effed it up, but it's the thought that counts. I love that bracelet. But hearing them talk about what happened to cause her to be activated was just the last straw for my waterworks. I started sobbing.
She got us all little presents. My uncle she got a 5lb bar of chocolate, my grandma she got a sweet little necklace about moms. She gave my grandpa (her dad) the first coin she got after she graduated from the MP academy, and then a coin with SGM rank on it (she retired as a SGM). She got me a necklace about following your dreams (it's a compass.) And she got my brother his first and almost last rank. My brother is in ROTC now, so he'll be commissioned after he graduates college. She got him his LT bars, and since you apparently can't buy 4 stars, she bought him his first set of stars.
And now, the PIP:
LTR: Uncle, Mom, Grandma, Grandpa
LTR: Dad, Mom, Me, Brother.