Camp Thunderbolt

Michelle processing through the deployment line to pick up her backpack and other necessary items.
Here she is trying on a pilot's helmet.
Of course there is a pre-deployment briefing to attend. Michelle is practicing her handgrenade skills.

The OSI (Office of Special Investigations) enlisted Michelle as a junior agent. The task was to lift fingerprints of items to see who didn't clean the room. Here she is using dusting powder to lift the fingerprint. Now it's time to get combat ready with face paint. Posing with a sniper of the security forces.
Michelle's arm - impaled by a stick.

Saturday morning at 6:30 the kids got a call for their deployment. They deployed for 5 hours (with mom in tow) to a far, far away place on the other side of the base. ;o)

It was good to get out of the house and do something different, but I'm not used to being out for 5 hours in this heat, so I ended up with a whopper of a headache (beginning of migraine) by the time we got home. Even with that we had a great day today and the kids got a whole lot of goodies thanks to so many different organizations that generously donated items and their time to make this a huge success!

This "deployment" was mainly for kids to get an impression in a very fun way of what their parents have to do when they deploy, early recall included. In a real deployment those calls can come any time of the day. Cliff had phone calls at different times of the night for the real thing throughout the years. Families with deployed family members had sign up preference, but the event was open for all military families, active duty, reserve, DOD etc.

They had about 250 kids from what I heard, which were split into 8 different groups (group color was on their special laminated deployment ID) and we were picked up with two tours of 4 buses. When we got back to the starting point, they staged a coming home party in the hangar, where everybody walked through a line getting high-fives and leis and then after a short post-deployment briefing they got more gifts (i.e. Diamondback baseball cap, Coyotes shirt etc.) and cake.