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Seabees Receive Easter Greeting: Friendly Faces Await Members of NMCB 133

Posted on: Monday, 17 April 2006, 09:01 CDT

By Kat Bergeron, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.

Apr. 17--GULFPORT -- Sarah Saucier stood at the head of the frantically waving Sunday crowd and smiled as her dad's airplane taxied to end a six-month Seabee deployment in Guam.

She was dressed to the nines in navy blue, from anchor socks to sailor hat -- one of her dad's that her mother shrank to fit a 3-year-old head.

"I'm a stay-at-home mom trying to get a house fixed that Katrina took the roof off of," Pam Saucier explained as she kept a watchful eye on a daughter eager to run to her father, EO1 Harold Saucier.

"It was a really tough time without him. Guess he'll have to like all my decisions."

Sarah and a few other children broke the invisible "Do Not Cross" line to be the first to give returning Seabee parents a hug. In recent years, this battalion, NMCB 133, has had deployments in Honduras, Iraq and Africa, as well as Guam.

Karisma Slusher was so excited she couldn't eat breakfast. The plane was supposed to arrive at 11 a.m. but came an hour early, which was OK with Karisma and her sister as they broke the invisible line.

"Oh, man, there's no words to describe being home," E6 Gilroy Slusher said. "It just feels good."

This is the second of five contingencies from NMCB 133 expected to return this month. About 120 arrived on the Easter flight. Many had left the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion base in Gulfport within days or weeks after the hurricane, leaving spouses that had to live elsewhere, find new living arrangements or repair storm-damaged houses.

"We're devout Catholics so having him return home on Easter is very special," said Lanae Manning, who has temporarily lived in Pensacola since Katrina. "Today is like a new beginning. It will be a very special Easter. One I will never forgot."

Their son, 6-year-old Tre Manning, sported a colorful "Welcome Home, American Heroes" sign, which he clung to even after he'd hugged PS1 Bobby Manning Jr.

"Of course when you're away, you recognize what you have," said Manning, "but when you see your family for the first time after so many months, you realize what a special part of your life they are. It makes you glad to be home."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.)

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