After 5 years in Navy, son comes home to ocean of love
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BY COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star
Bonnie Meyer opened the wooden box her son gave her five years ago on Mother’s Day and cried.
Inside was a letter. Dear Mom …
Jeff, her baby, was 18, headed to the Navy. The letter had a nautical theme, and he compared the years of his life to a stream that becomes a river and ends in the ocean.
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This was final line, before the heart he drew above his name:
I know wherever the waves carry me, I will always call this sand castle on 73rd St. home.
“I was thinking, ‘OK, this is my last Mother’s Day home for a while,’ and I thought I was grown up, so I wanted kind of the leaving-home-and-I-appreciate-everything-you’ve-done-for-me thing.”
Bonnie first saw him in his uniform at basic training graduation in 2003. Jeff, a graduate of Parkview Christian, stood stone-faced through the hourlong ceremony, locked up in the military bearing.
“They say, ‘Liberty call, liberty call!’ Then everybody breaks formation and goes to their family.”
He laughs.
“She tears across the floor and buries her face in my arms and hugs me and she’s bawling, and getting makeup all over my dress whites — mascara and foundation.”
The waves carried him to Illinois to San Antonio to Japan. He became a military policeman. They carried him from South Carolina to Maine to Germany and Kuwait.
To Africa and a little country between Somalia and Ethiopia called Djibouti. He searched for roadside bombs. He searched vehicles. He used bomb-sniffing dogs. He searched through roadside trash, sometimes in the afternoon heat of 140 degrees.
Bonnie knew, and she worried. But he didn’t tell her everything.
He didn’t tell her about the day he searched a minefield. Or about the day in Djibouti when, after a 24-hour shift, he was asked to go on a mission. He was tired. He drove the military Land Rover slowly. Normally in Djibouti, he drove 100-plus clicks everywhere, fast as he could, because it wasn’t safe on the streets. There was a strong al-Qaida presence.
Someone threw a 12-pound rock at the windshield.
It hit the dashboard.
Had he been driving fast …
The wooden box filled with letters.
At 18, the thought he knew it all.
He got tattoos. So Bonnie mailed him magazine articles about the latest advances in tattoo-removal technology.
He started to smoke. She mailed him articles about the dangers.
Letters written by an 18-year-old are different than letters written by a 23-year-old, Jeff’s age now. He stopped rejecting his parents’ advice. He started asking for it.
A few days ago, his five-year Navy stint completed, Jeff came back to Nebraska and to his mother and father and older sisters, to his nieces and nephews, to his parents’ home and the bedroom Bonnie decorated in a nautical theme, even though he stayed on land the whole time.
His dad helped move him home from Texas. They arrived early, so Jeff decided to surprise his mom. He bought orange roses and a card that says, “IT’S A BOY.”
He put on his white dress uniform and walked into the medical records building at St. Elizabeth Medical Center, where Bonnie works.
She hugged him. She cried. But this time, she was careful, no mascara on the sleeves.
This morning, Jeff has few more surprises for her. This story. A video that goes with this story on JournalStar.com — about their crazy $10,000 win on “America’s Funniest Home Video” back in 2002, when Bonnie taped 17-year-old Jeff chasing a squirrel that had come down the chimney.
And he has another letter for her wooden box.
He gets out a black pen.
Hey Mom …
“No, that’s not right. It’s like I’m talking to my friends.”
“Dear Mom …It has been far too long since I have given you a hug on Mother’s Day. … Love you always.
Jeffrey Keith.”
Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.
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God Bless wrote on May 11, 2008 7:13 am:
God bless you and your family. "
b s wrote on May 11, 2008 8:05 am:
Tammy Wilson wrote on May 11, 2008 1:53 pm:
Karla Slaymaker wrote on May 11, 2008 5:18 pm:
Love,
Your family from the west "
Zelma Meyer wrote on May 11, 2008 5:20 pm:
Love,
Grandma "
JPC wrote on May 11, 2008 7:49 pm:
"
John Massie wrote on May 11, 2008 8:04 pm:
HPG wrote on May 11, 2008 9:19 pm:
Tom Fox wrote on May 11, 2008 10:24 pm:
Thank you wrote on May 12, 2008 10:43 am:
Thank you for your service. Welcome home. "
Cheryl Wemhoff wrote on May 12, 2008 12:51 pm: