More than 5,000 service members in training at Fort Leonard Wood traveled to see families, friends and loved ones for the holidays Saturday.
The post’s Holiday Block Leave operations commenced Friday with more than 50 chartered buses transporting Fort Leonard Wood troops from the installation to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
While the soldiers waited for their flights to leave, they had the opportunity to take part in a myriad of activities at the airport sponsored by the USO of Missouri Inc., and the excitement, anticipation and happiness were evident among the soldiers camped out in the terminal waiting to leave.
“I’m excited to be going home,” said Spc. Racheal Oloyede, Company A, 554th Engineer Battalion. “I’m looking forward to seeing my daughter.”
Oloyede, who is a soldier with the Georgia Army National Guard, completed 10 weeks of Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson, S.C., and is now in week three of Advanced Individual Training at Fort Leonard Wood, where she is training to be a 12N, horizontal construction engineer.
Being a native of Georgia, Oloyede said she’s not looking forward to coming back to Missouri.
Why? “It’s so cold,” she said.
But for Pvt. Hunter Bowman, Company B, 58th Transportation Battalion, he’s looking forward to both going home for the holidays and returning back to Fort Leonard Wood for training.
“I have a cousin, who is like a brother to me, and I haven’t seen him in forever. I really miss him,” Bowman said. “But, being on base makes you want to be active duty, because you’re used to the Army lifestyle. You’re used to waking up every morning and running five miles. You tend to love it.”
Unlike Bowman, Pvt. Cecilia Mondragon, Company A, 58th Transportation Battalion, doesn’t have the same sentiment.
Mondragon said she will be sad to leave her family, and she will really miss her best friend, who she hasn’t seen in a long time.
Nonetheless, Pvt. Mondragon, who will miss her best friend from back home, reunited with an elementary school friend today at the airport for the first time in eight years. Both Bowman and Mondragon attended the same elementary school in Virginia.
Only Saturday in the thousands of soldiers traveling home for the holidays at the airport did Bowman and Mondragon find each other and discover they are both training at Fort Leonard Wood to be 88M, motor transport operators in 58th Trans. Bn., just in different companies.
“This is so bizarre,” Bowman said. “I was talking to one of the other privates, and I said, ‘I know that name, and I know that face,'” he said. “Granted, it’s been eight years since I’ve seen her. It was really cool sitting in an airport of thousands of Soldiers going home for Christmas and meeting a Soldier I went to elementary school with eight years ago. Now we’re in the Army, in the same MOS (military occupational specialty), at the same base, just a building away from each other.”
And, Mondragon was amazed by the discovery.
“The last time I saw him was in fifth grade. I saw his name tag, and I said, ‘I know him.’ I asked him if he was from Virginia, and he said ‘yep.’ I asked him, ‘what’s your first name.’ He said, ‘Hunter.’ I said, ‘oh my gosh, it’s a small world,'” Mondragon said.