Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Sailors returning/home from the sea/expect to be greeted/passionately

After Petty Officer 1st Class Bob Rodgers arrives at Naval Station Ingleside today and is driving to his home in Corpus Christi, he will see a line of signs welcoming him home - Burma Shave style.

   The signs say:
   He's been to ...
   Spain ...
   France ...
   And Rome...
   Now our daddy is back...
   Home.

   The plywood signs were created by Rodgers' wife, Peg, their daughters, Jennifer, 7, and Katherine, 5, and Rodgers' father, J.D. Novak.
   "We have just not been the same without him here. And we feel now that he's back here, our hearts will be together and strong again," Peg Rodgers said of her husband, who serves on the USS Inchon.
   The welcome for 1,300 Naval Station Ingleside sailors today will be short on pomp and long on private celebrations, with doting parents traveling thousands of miles to greet their sailor sons and daughters and intimacy-starved spouses renting hotel rooms for romantic reunions.
   When the Inchon sweeps past the Port Aransas jetties this morning, Corrine and Bill Hinkle will be there to welcome back the crew and their 19-year-old son, Jordan.
   "We hope to make eye-to-eye contact with him as he passes by," said Corrine Hinkle, who drove in from Dike, Iowa, to make the moment.
   And when the ships dock at the U.S. Navy's Mine Warfare Center of Excellence in Ingleside, the Hinkles, along with hundreds of other mothers, fathers, wives and family of the sailors, will be there, too.
   "We're going to race back (to Ingleside) in our car to meet him when he gets off," Corrine Hinkle said.
   "He needs a hug."
   Hundreds of cheering, flag-waving Coastal Bend residents are expected to descend on Naval Station Ingleside for the sailors' return this morning. Navy officials plan to hold a quick welcome at the base but will not waste time with a full-fledged ceremony, said Ensign Chuck Bell, public affairs officer with the Mine Warfare Command.
   "The whole idea behind this day is to reunite the sailors with their families and their friends," Bell said.
   Spouses are the ones planning the most special welcomes for the sailors.
   "When the ladies come down, they can be dressed to the nines," said Bull Walker, a member of the executive board of the Ingleside Area Council of the Navy League. "You will see some girls here who will knock you down. They've been on diets. They look the best they'll ever look.
   "The whole atmosphere is charged," Walker said. "It's an estrogen high. The hormones are just going absolutely bonkers."
   Some spouses, even though they live in the local area, have booked hotel rooms where they plan to go with their spouses after the ships arrive, said Elaine Willeford, executive director of the Ingleside Chamber of Commerce Tourist and Information Center.
   "They just want that time together," Willeford said. "You've got to remember that, for many, this is a first deployment, and some are newlyweds."
   Last night at sea
   On board the Inchon Tuesday night, Petty Officer 2nd Class Henry Harris had a lot to do. As an assistant to the engineers, he had to pack up his boxes, paperwork and anything that wasn't going to be needed once the ship was in port.
   But his mind was only on the possibility of feeling his wife, Anasthia's, wrath.
   "Oh man, (Wednesday) is my anniversary and I haven't gotten a gift," Harris said. "We've been married nine years and this is the first time I've been away from her. Where am I supposed to get one now?"
   On Tuesday night, most sailors said they wouldn't waste time trying to sleep. The cooks prepared and served pizza until 2 a.m. On the flight deck, antsy pilots who flew Sea Dragon helicopters into Albania were hung out on the flight deck watching the five-month cruise's last sunset.
   But Harris said he won't be able to resist his bed.
   "Right now, I'm like a kid at Christmas," Harris said. "I want to go to bed early so that when I wake up in the morning, I get to open my presents."
   Catching up to do
   Corrine Hinkle, a 57-year-old retired fourth-grade teacher, and her husband say they plan of whisking their son away from the crowd and to a big meal at the Big Fisherman.
   "We've got a lot of talking, and a lot of listening to do," Corrine Hinkle said.
   Though the Hinkles managed to keep in touch with their son via e-mail, it will be the first time they've spoken to him face-to-face in more than five months. While he was away, his mother mailed him nine disposable cameras, which he used to shoot photos of Italy, Spain, France and the Adriatic Sea.
   "We've got them developed, but it's just not nearly so exciting as if he were here sitting there telling us what was going on, what he was doing and seeing."
   Corrine Hinkle said her son e-mailed her about dolphins, whales and the beautiful sunsets he had seen at sea. But the grinding workload and long hours forced him to keep his notes to her short.
   "I don't think he had much time to be sitting at the computer," she said.
   Corrine Hinkle said she wrote longer e-mails to her son, telling him stories of home.
   "Just about little things going on at home, hometown stuff about the family and the dog and friends he's got here," she said.
   USS Avenger sailor Tim Ramsey will have the honor of being the first sailor on his ship to get a kiss when he docks.
   Ramsey's wife, Amy Ramsey, won a lottery that gives her husband the right to be the first one to step off the ship.
   Amy can't wait. Tim Ramsey, 21, has been deployed since Feb. 24. The couple has never been separated this long.
   "I know it is going to be wonderful to hold him and kiss him," she said. "And just to be able to see him."

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