Marines get a warm home coming in Galveston

Houston Chronicle:

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For hours before the Marines arrived, giddy relatives decorated homemade signs and passed out tiny American flags. Wives dressed to the nines in high heels, cocktail dresses, halter tops and new hair-dos. They traded text message updates from the Marines, who sent cell phone photos of their plane landing at the airport in Houston and the progress of their bus trip down I-45, cheered by crowds of well-wishers.

Dickey's friend, 26-year-old Shawna Lockwood of LaMarque, came prepared. “Everything is waterproof on my face — mascara, eyeliner, everything but the eye shadow,” she laughed.

The couple's two children were dressed in camouflage — Abigail, 2, in a dress with pink ribbons on the shoulders and one-month-old Jackson in a tiny camo T-shirt.

Their father, Gunnery Sgt. Matthew Lockwood, would meet his baby son Jackson for the first time when he stepped off the bus Monday afternoon.

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At 4:46 p.m. cheers and piercing whistles erupted from the flag-waving crowd gathered outside the Marine Reserve Training Center as Galveston County Sheriff's deputies and Patriot Guard Riders on motorcycles pulled up, sirens and horns blaring. The escort was followed by two buses full of Marines.

Gunnery Sgt. Lockwood was the last man off the second bus. He maneuvered through screaming, crying throngs of reunited families until he spotted his own. In seconds flat 2-year-old Abigail was in his arms. “Can you introduce me to your little brother?” he asked. Wiping tears away, his wife handed him the baby.

“It was worth the wait,” the Marine said, cradling his baby boy in one arm and toddler daughter in the other. “We got to see each other a lot on Skype, and I got pictures and video, but it definitely didn't compare to being able to hold him for the first time.”

He struggled for the right words.

“Surreal is probably the best way to describe it,” he said. “It certainly made a great homecoming.”

Shauna Dickey's husband, Staff Sgt. James Dickey, had trouble finding his wife in the chaos.

“Finally somebody said, ‘She's by the door,'” he said. “And then I teared up. Of course I did. It's been a long seven months.”

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Sgt. Dickey had a surprise waiting for him at home where his wife had done a total makeover while he was gone. We owe a special thanks to these guys and their families.