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Thursday, January 22, 2004
Sergeant´s order:
Double quarter pounder with fries, large drink
By MARK I. JOHNSON | News-Journal Staff Writer
NEW SMYRNA BEACH — When John Kloiber got back from his second tour of Afghanistan, the first thing he did, after saying hello to his wife, Sarah, was head to McDonald´s.
So when he came home to Edgewater on leave this week, his family decided to continue that tradition by taking the soldier out to lunch at his favorite eatery.
They contacted the local fast-food restaurant about a welcome home party, and the staff of the McDonald´s on U.S. 1 put out the welcome mat.
In addition to balloons and patriotic decorations Wednesday morning, the New Smyrna Beach High School graduate got a hug from an employee as he walked through a door decorated with a poster announcing “Welcome home to John and his empty stomach.”
“He is a hero as far as I am concerned,” said franchise owner Sue Martin as she wiped away tears.
Martin´s customers took the festivities in stride.
“I thought it was a birthday party,” Jessee Tankersley said as he ate his lunch.
Kloiber, an Army Special Forces sergeant, spent the past three months searching for Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters from his base in Bagram, Afghanistan.
While he could not provide details of his assignment, Kloiber described Afghanistan as “a lot of sand.”
“Some of the people were thankful we are there and others aren´t,“ he said while lunching on a double quarter-pounder with cheese, large order of fries and a drink.
Kloiber said the hardest part of being overseas, other than missing his pregnant wife, Sarah, was he did not get to see the Florida Marlins playing in the World Series.
“I would have gone (to the game) if I had been here,” he said. “All of (my family) are Yankees fans.”
“I had to harass them for him,” Sarah Kloiber said Kloiber´s mother, Shelia, said she always worries about her son when he deploys overseas, but this assignment was the hardest, even worse than when he was sent to Afghanistan just days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“I was more frightened because of everything that is going on in the world,” she said. “The first time (he went to Afghanistan), we didn´t know what was going on. This second time, we did.”
Although Kloiber stayed in touch by mail and e-mail, Shelia Kloiber said there is nothing like seeing her son face to face.
“It is great he is here in person,” she said.
Kloiber said, while in Southeast Volusia, he plans to go to the beach, get in a little fishing and spend time with his wife.
“Anything to forget about military life for a little while,” Sarah Kloiber said.