Delayed Party

Today James taught me some more Navy/Military lingo. With all the acronyms and abbreviations flying around, it's a never ending education. When I'm hanging out with James and his friends or with Navy wives I'm usually either the annoying one asking what in the world they are talking about every five seconds, or I'm just completely lost. It varies depending on how much effort I want to put into improving my military jargon skills...and occasionally on how curious I am about whether they are talking about a deployment or just some sort of meeting that is happening in a few weeks. I'm not joking...it's really hard to tell sometimes!

When the battalion returns from Afghanistan they will be coming on two flights about a week apart. I have learned over the last few weeks to only refer to these as the "first flight" and "second flight" if I want to give myself away as a Navy wife/fiance rookie. The correct terminology is "AP" for first flight and "DP" for second flight. I've known for weeks what to call them, but I never knew why I was calling them that. I tried googling it and only came up with information on Acquisition Policies and Defense Procurement. Somehow I didn't think those were quite right. I finally remembered to ask James this morning what AP and DP mean and it's pretty simple: Advanced Party and Delayed Party. Guess which one James is on... :(

Here's the story on the DP situation (do I sound cool when I say DP instead of second fight? yessssss). James was originally scheduled to be on AP. Yay! I was so excited when he told me!! Unfortunately, a few days later he told me he had been moved to DP. In this case, DP also stands for Depressed Person (me). At first I attributed it the female brain of the military (always changing it's mind!)...but then James informed me that he had volunteered to be moved. Whyyyyyyy oh whyyyyyyy would my man who is dying to come home and who knows that I miss him like crazy and that I'm about to jump off my balcony and onto a sprinkler if I don't see him soon do this?? He either doesn't care about me, or he is nuts.

It took me a little while to realize that there was a third possible reason for why he had made this decision...and that reason is that he is awesome. James is in charge of a crew of men and women who are all on DP for whatever reason. James felt it was only right to stay with his men and take the later flight. I mean really...what kind of leader leaves his men behind? Even if only for a week. Certainly not my man!

On top of this, James also gave up his position on AP to a specific person...a man who had been on several recent deployments and was scheduled to be on DP. Since this is James' first (and only, hopefully) deployment he wanted to do something to show his appreciation to this man who had given up so much of his time to serve over the last few years. Nice, right?

From what I hear from James and all his friends who are over there, they just can't wait to get out and to be home. Even though I'm sad that I have to wait an extra week (possibly 2...uggggggggh) to see James, I am just so, so proud of him for being such a stand up guy and a great leader. His strength of character astounds me and I'm pretty sure I could never be as selfless as he is. What an amazing man I have! I am a lucky, lucky girl :)