My husband, Kenneth McCord, joined the United States Navy on April 1st, 2015 and after boot camp and A school, was stationed in Bremerton, WA. We definitely know and have experienced the sacrifices that this job requires in our relationship and with his family. His mother, Arlena Bohannan, and I have been his biggest supporters through these last couple years. She is a single mom and has done an amazing job at raising her son. We knew that Kenny's Aircraft Carrier, the USS Nimitz CVN 68, was going to be deployed in June of 2017 and we all tried to get time off to come up and see him before they shipped. Sadly, Arlena did not have the funds to be able to fly to Washington State to see him before he shipped out. So that's when I first came up with the idea to surprise her. I talked to Kenny and we agreed that we would bring him home and surprise his mom! Through the months leading up to the surprise it was really difficult to keep the secret, everyone knew he was going to be coming home except for his mom. About a month before the day he was supposed to be home, I got in touch with Arlena's boss and found a time and place that we could surprise her at work. Arlena works at the Indian clinic in Vinita, OK and her boss was very excited to help me out. The day of the big surprise, her boss snuck us through the back doors and lead us upstairs to a conference room. Her boss had told Arlena that she was going to be asked questions by her and her boss above everything, acting like she might be in trouble! So we waited and finally she was reunited with her son again! It was heart very warming and I am very glad I got to surprise her. She was under the impression that she would not see Kenny until 2018 so it was even more special. We are very proud of him and glad we got to spend much needed time with our boy.