NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — The Ponder family call themselves the Spartans, with mom, dad, and a daughter all being in the Navy.
But what were the chances that two of them would wind up on the same deployment, gearing up to come back home this weekend?
After nine long months at sea, the USS Eisenhower will soon be back in Norfolk.
Reese Ponder is among the many people who wait with excitement as both her husband and daughter are on the ship.
“When it was time for her to go on deployment, and then he got word he was going on deployment, I was like, ‘What deployment are you going on? He was like, ‘the same deployment as Chailen,'” Reese Ponder said.
The USS Eisenhower was engaged in months of combat in the Middle East.
Ponder said as a member of the Navy herself, she knew exactly what her daughter was feeling.
“So even when she wanted to be afraid, I was like, ‘No you got this,'” she said.
While this was her daughter Chailen’s first deployment, Reese’s husband, Stanley, is a command master chief with years of experience under his belt.
“So, it’s absolutely a blessing, and sometimes maybe considered a little bit of a bad thing,” Reese Ponder said, “because she feels like she may be in his shadow. And I’m thinking, ‘what better shadow to be in?'”
Be that as it may, she already sees how her daughter is coming into her own in the Navy.
“She said, ‘I’m following in his footsteps, but I’m creating my own way,'” Reese Ponder said. “And I was like, yes, yes.”
And she already has plans for some major fanfare when they return.
“When we pull up in the neighborhood, they see the cars lined up and they see people clapping,” Reese Ponder said, “because, you know they’ll already get that anyway when they come off the ship. But to come to your neighborhood and then have people from your neighborhood and people from your church come to just welcome you back home, that’s a really big deal.”
She held back tears as she thought about how proud she is of both of them.
“They have, not to toot their horn or my own horn, two of the best war fighters out there at sea right now,” she said. “And I don’t know, I’m just proud to call him my husband and to call her my baby girl.”
There will be homecoming events for Carrier Air Wing 3 Friday and Saturday.