Yes, that really is his name and title right now, he served in the infantry at Fort Benning, Georgia and pretty much didn't get any sleep for 4 months so he looks super tired in these shots because he was up for 3 days straight in addition to that just before coming back getting only an hour here and there. What would I do?  Mom and Holly waiting in anticipation My family made a carpool and picked a few of us up from far out locations and all headed over to the airport with our balloons,  My niece Dakota waiting. flags and a homeade "welcome home" sign  My proud and hopeful mother. and waited for about 20 minutes in anticipation for his arrival.  Private Ryan is finally here! Not everyone is in the pictures because everyone was moving so fast and he was in no mood to keep posing for pictures, so I got what I could Mother and son moment... . A few of his friends met us at the airport, we all went and helped him find his rather enormous duffel bag,  Carrying his 80 lb bag on the way to the parking garage. hung out in the parking garage for a bit  My brother and I (my neice took this one) in the parking garage. and took him out to dinner (everyone got steaks but me since I'm a vegetarian) and he told us a few stories At a restaurant he tells us bootcamp stories.  and what it was like. We all kept correspondence with him via mail (actual snail mail) the whole time he was gone, it seemed to help the homesickness. He's home for about a month now till he ships back out. Next leave will be for the holidays. :(  We're enjoying his company while he's here though! He's a tough and funny guy.