After an 11 month deployment in Afghanistan, Navy Chief Petty Officer Derek Ten Eyck is returning to Saratoga.
A welcome home party is planned at St. Ann’s Parish Saturday, March 1 after the 5:30 p.m. mass.
His wife, Amanda, said she is very excited to have him come home. He left three weeks after their youngest child was born.
Amanda said he could be home as early as Friday, or as late as Wednesday. It depended on how long it took to out-process from active duty. She will have to drive to Denver to pick him up once he is discharged back to reserve duty.
Derek has been in the Navy for around 17 years, Amanda said, and served active duty for four years including two years in Italy, before going into the Reserves.
Derek’s deployment was delayed as he waited for the birth of his son Conrad. Three weeks after Conrad was born, Derek left for Afghanistan.
The couple have three other children, Rebecca, a freshman at Saratoga High School; Rossiter, a kindergartner at Saratoga Elementary School and two-year-old Gemma.
Derek works in human resources at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins, and has lived in Saratoga since January 2012. His family moved to Saratoga in June 2012.
Before moving to Saratoga, the family lived in Gillette, moving to Wyoming from Pennsylvania.
Derek is originally from South Dakota and Amanda is from Maine. They met on an orthodox Catholic dating site. They met in March 2004 and married in June 2005.
Derek drills at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo.
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