From homecoming party to sudden good-byes, again

Louise and Wallace Nelson thought they were going to be planning a homecoming party for their son, Spc. Wade Nelson, but instead, they are bracing themselves for more uncertainty.

Nelson, a Colony High School graduate who has been stationed in Baghdad for more than a year with the U.S. Army 1st Armored Division 1st Cavalry Unit, was scheduled to come home. It was great news, but it was short-lived. A few days after phoning his parents with the good news, he called again -- this time from Kuwait, to tell them his unit was headed back to Iraq.

Nelson is a gunner with the unit.

"I thought I was going to be sending you a message he was coming home … we were starting to plan his homecoming," his mother wrote in an e-mail.

Nelson knows the job at hand, however.

When his mother asked him how he was doing, he told her, "Fine. I'm in good spirits and we're doing the right thing. I chose the Army. It didn't choose me. We're going to get the job done."