They went to church in the morning, went to lunch together and returned home.  Randy went through the house and picked up articles and fixed some minor problems.  By mid afternoon he had everything but his clothes packed to leave.  About 4:15 the phone rang.  When Randy hang up he shrugged, “They are E-mailing me my orders.  I have till Tuesday A. M. to get there.  Monday is a travel day.”

His wife hugged him, “Where is there?”

“I don’t know yet.  I have to go read mail.”  He walked to the computer and logged on.  The message was there, he printed two copies of it and handed one to her.

It read like military orders.  He was to be at HIA by 1430 hours for transport.  His tickets would be at the information desk.  He was to bring with him whatever he would need for a stay of one month.  Included were lists of things to bring and not bring.  One thing that interested him, he was to bring a laptop computer if he had one.  If he had communications adapters and other accessories he was to bring them.  There was also a list of documentation that he should bring if available.  Some of it was manuals for very old systems.  There were forms.  There was one to give his wife a limited power of attorney.  The next was a special IRS form that gave them relief from tax filing and a form to complete if he could not serve for hardship.  If this were the case it must be filed in person with the Army in New Cumberland by noon on Monday.  He put the hardship form on the back.  That was only if he could not serve.

He took a highlighter and began marking some of the items on the list.  The items were diverse, shaving supplies to personal religious books, computer manuals to boots, computer mouse pad to gloves, and computer language reference manuals to personal medications and copies of prescriptions.  While he was doing it the phone rang again.  It was for his son, a network engineer and programmer.  He logged on and read his mail.  It too had orders for him.  He printed copies of the document and handed one to Randy.  His assignment was at the company he worked for.  They had declared him crucial.  He would be allowed to stay unless some serious need arose somewhere else.  It took nearly three hours to pack everything, to get it into boxes and tape all but the last of them.  He had quite a library of older manuals and they were all being packed.  Randy had two suitcases, six copy paper boxes, a duffel bag and his computer case.  He wondered if he would be allowed to take all of what he had packed.  Was there a weight or space limit?  He looked at the list, there was no doubt, almost everything he packed was on the list.