Mark Edward Brown's Blog

It’s been a couple days since my last post and it is Christmas so I wanted to make a blog post to tell all of my family and friends what the heck has been going on.

This holiday story goes back a couple of months so bear with me; when I discovered that my friend and collegue in the Army was coming to Korea to assume command of the unit that I was scheduled to leave I was thrilled.  My boss even agreed to allow me to leave early so that I could suprise and celebrate the Holiday’s with my family.

Originally I was scheduled to leave Korea around the 7th of January 2012 however because there was a smooth transition and I was done commanding early I was able to leave Korea around the 19th of December.  The month leading up to the day of my departure was really hectic and I had to watch what I said and did when I spoke with my wife and kids.  I even had to monitor what I put on Facebook and such because I didn’t want word of my suprise to get out before I made it home, which would have spoiled the suprise.

To make a long story short; 40 hours of flying and late in the evening of a weary 2 days of traveling I was knocking lightly on the front door of my home.  The kids were all in bed and asleep and my wife had just retired to bed about 20 minutes before I arrived on our doorstep via a taxi ride from the airport.

When she turned on the light and saw me there was a look of disbelief mixed with joy and then a “what in the heck are you trying pull here” look came across her face.  It was priceless and worth the travel time and preparation along with all the anxiety and tight lipped secrecy as well.

The bottom line is both my wife and I experienced the best Christmas gift we could have shared with each other.  My kids might say the same thing however they scored some really sweet gifts from santy claus so I’m not sure what they would say about the whole ordeal, after all they did have to go to a half a day of school before they could get back home to spend some long overdue time with me for their holiday break.

Now that I am back in the USA I will post more as we have a big New Years adventure ahead of us with our pending move to Fort Sill.

Merry Christmas and leave me a comment to tell me how your Christmas went?

Mark Edward Brown

P.S. ~ I miss my Soldiers, Friends and Fellow Leaders from Korea, leaving was bittersweet yet I know they all understood that it was my time to move on.