So I've been watching Army Wives and seeing a mom saying goodbye to her son going off to Iraq and it brought memories flooding back of saying goodbye to paratrooper Richard Dean Dawson each time he was called up to the border war in Angola. Seeing him in his browns with his balsak over his shoulder, his heavy boots and his name on a tape sewn to his chest, his purple beret at a jaunty angle covering half his forehead, wondering if it was going to be the last time I ever held him in my arms. He would whisper assurances to me promising that he would be back soon and that his first letter would be in the post as soon as he could. He never worried what the other guys would say and always made me feel like we were alone in the middle of all the tangled goodbyes. We were the lucky ones, he came back every time.
The time I remember clearest was one where the guys flew in to the then Jan Smuts airport and we had to collect them at one of the quiet hangars, I had just been doing modeling for a photo shoot at the Germiston camera club and I was wearing high heels and a leopard print dress. All the guys were hanging around chatting on the far side of a 100m concrete quad, I walked across the concrete, feeling all the eyes on me until I got to Richard and we ran the last steps and he swung me around just like in the movies. He had the proudest smile on his face and told me later the guys were saying who is that hot chick and he said "she's mine!" I loved that story and that day.
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