By Meghan McPhillips-Jones

It was a Golden homecoming on November 17 when Lunenburg resident Joe Golden returned to his wife, Liana and two children, Matthew, 8, and Jacoby, 3, after completing his second tour in Iraq. After being away for almost a full year, Golden will be able to spend the holidays with his family!
    “It’s awesome to be back home,” said Golden. “We weren’t sure if we were going to make it [home] for Thanksgiving, but we got back just in time. …I deployed on December 3 of last year and was [in Iraq] just shy of a year.”
    Golden has been serving in the Army National Guard as a specialist for the past eight years.  
    “I joined because my father was in the army. …I wanted to be able to serve my country somehow, so I joined the National Guard,” he said. “This was my second time in country [in Iraq]. I was a radar repairer. I maintained and operated fire finder radar.”
    Golden’s wife Liana says she is glad to have her husband safe and sound and back with the family once again.
    “It was lonely at times when he was gone, but we kept in touch almost every day,” said Liana.
    Joe and his family kept in touch via phones and computers.
    “We Skyped a lot, [but] sometimes it wasn’t good enough. Sometimes things got in the way but we still got to see each other at least,” said Golden.
    Joe says he is most grateful for being able to use Skype to log face time with his youngest son.
    “They say that children under 4-years-old might not remember their father when they come back home, but we talked almost every day, and he got to know his Daddy through a computer screen,” said Joe.
    Over the past year, the Goldens put every effort into making sure that Joe was never far from their hearts and minds while he was away. The family kept a large poster of Joe with them at all times, whether at home or on the road (as seen in photo on front page). They call him “Flat Daddy”.
    “[The poster] got pretty beaten up. It was tackled, bent in half, stabbedwith  fork in his face – but Flat Daddy went to every one of Matthew’s football games and things like that,” said Liana.
    “I can’t wait to be able to go to my son’s games in person, I missed the entire season,” said Joe. “But I did get to watch a video  while I was overseas!”
    Now that Joe is home, the Goldens’  hope to find a new routine together. Just before Joe deployed, the family moved into their current home in Lunenburg.
    “I didn’t have a regular routine in this house with him before he left,” added Liana. “For almost a year before he left he was in and out with training so I forgot what it was like to [live a normal schedule].”
    Joe will be returning to his every day job as a corrections officer at the Susan Baranowski Correctional Facility in Shirley and his family will be happily adjusting to having their dad home again.
Especially, Joe’s two boys.
    “They get worked up if he goes to the store,” Liana explained. “They keep asking, ‘Where’s Daddy? Is he coming home?’ and I have to tell them, yes, he just went out to get coffee!”
    Joe has one year left on his contract and will most likely not be deployed again.
    “I’m home for good. It was good to serve my country, but I won’t be re-enlisting,” he said. “I don’t want to miss anything else. I’ve missed enough already.”