Reserve unit returns home to ceremony and open arms
Almost everyone in the Harbor Ballroom at the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel yesterday afternoon was wearing camouflage. There were soldiers in military-issued camouflage. Children in kid-sized camouflage. Mothers-to-be in maternity camouflage.
And then there was Rob Nowicky. He was standing near the escalator in an orange T-shirt and jeans, a bouquet of slightly wilted lavender roses hanging from his fist. They're his wife Melissa's favorite color.
She was late.
That sometimes happens when an Army battalion is traveling from Iraq back to the United States with too many points in between, Nowicky said. His wife - a sergeant with the Army Reserve's 719th Movement Control Battalion - has been deployed for more than a year. But she and about 60 other soldiers were scheduled to arrive home momentarily.
About "a year and 10 days - not that I'm counting," Nowicky said just after 4 p.m. yesterday.
That's a year and 10 days as a single father. A year and 10 days that their son, 5-year-old Robbie, hadn't seen his mother.
"I told him exactly what it is: Mommy's over there fighting bad people who attacked us so that you can sleep at night," Nowicky said. "He wound up calling her his superhero."
As a supply specialist with the 719th, Melissa Nowicky helped move 26,000 convoys, containing 600,000 vehicles and one billion gallons of fuel. During one period in Iraq, she could talk to her family only once a week. She usually called midday Saturdays - around 8 p.m. Iraq time.
Once she arrives, Rob Nowicky said, he wants to ditch the pomp and circumstance of this "Welcome Home" gathering, where Senator John F. Kerry is speaking, and take his family to their Berlin, Conn., home.
"Go home, have supper, put on pajamas, watch a movie - whatever she wants to watch," he says.
At 5:07 p.m. his phone rang. Family members downstairs with Robbie had spotted his wife.
"She's here," he said. And soon Melissa Nowicky rode the escalator up to the ballroom with Robbie on her hip. The boy's black shirt read, "My mom rocks."
The three smiled widely and hugged. It's obvious they would have liked to hold the embrace. Instead, the family split so Melissa and her battalion could officially be welcomed home - something that Lieutenant Colonel Bill MacKinnon said is partly about tradition and partly about bringing closure to returning troops.
Kerry kept his speech to 3 minutes, telling the families that he knew they'd rather be at home to "put your feet up, have a beer, watch the rest of the game . . . find normality again."
Some Army brass spoke, then there was closing music. Colonel Stephen Falcone interrupted the song at 5:40 p.m.
"I just changed the ceremony," he said. "719th Movement Control Battalion dismissed!"
The soldiers had not heard that word, "dismissed," in more than a year. Hearing it now meant one thing: They're home for good.
Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com. 