21 YEARS HAVE NOW PASSED......

Well the birthday has come & gone. We got back Saturday from the picnic & stayed to visit with the Balsley's. About 9:15 PM PDT my cell rang. I knew it was him & that it was after midnight in his neck of the woods. I answered to hear him singing "Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, I'm all alone you evil woman, Happy Birthday to me". Seems I was an evil woman because I didn't call him at the stroke of midnight EDT.....Sheesh. So I held out my cell & the 4 of us sang to him. He was in his barracks.....his battle was in town so he was feeling neglected. To top it off they didn't do mail call on Saturday so none of the cards were delivered to him.

When we got home he we found that he had left a message on our answering machine pretty much the same as the call....except he left off the evil woman part. I tried to call him back but got his voice mail so I tried to sing to him again only I broke up at the end. He called later & told Steve to tell me when I sing "Happy Birthday" not to cry at the end. What can I say? I am a sappy mother.

I called him earlier & he tells me he is at mail call........."I've got 4000 cards here MOM" (I think he was exaggerating on this part tho) He put the gal on the phone from the mail room & I hear "He has lots of mail ma'am". I started to think he was angry with me but NOPE. He tells me he will call back in a while. When he got back to his barracks he called.....he started opening all the mail. He was so impressed.....and Happy. Thanks to everyone who helped me out with this. Even his Battles were impressed. He promised to take a picture & send to me but I have heard that before....not holding my breath here folks as I haven't gotten a picture of him since he first got there & I got a photo of an ice sculpture at Easter. But if I get it I will post it here....I promise.