Maj. Tom Watiti just wanted to stay home Saturday night and relax.

His wife, Judith, had other ideas. She had to figure out a way to get him to Club Hood, where 60 of his friends and colleagues were waiting to welcome him home from Iraq with a surprise party earlier this month.

The U.S. Army Operational Test Command test officer, who spent the last six months as part of the command's Forward Operational Assessment Team XV, finally agreed to attend a friend's birthday party at Judith's insistence. And he had to get dressed up in his dress uniform to boot.

Arriving at the club an hour and a half late to a darkened Starlight Room, Watiti was speechless when the lights came on and the applause and cheers started.

"I am surprised," was all he could muster as he made his way around the tables. "I thought I was going to someone's birthday party. You have really surprised me."

One of the program's highlights was a slide show of photographs Watiti, enterprise software testing expert for the command's Mission Command Test Directorate, had forwarded to his wife during his deployment. He explained to those in attendance that he and his 23 teammates looked at mine rollers, radar systems, metal detectors, various vehicles and munitions systems in already in use by units in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I was fortunate to be part of a great team of soldiers, civilians and contractors," Watiti said. "The kind of feedback we got from the units is invaluable to Army leaders as they make acquisition decisions."

With almost 27 years of active-duty service, Watiti is a naturalized citizen originally from Kimilili, Kenya. As the top architectural student and athlete in his village school, Watiti was awarded a scholarship to attend college in the United States, where he met Judith.

After his retirement later this year, the Watitis plan to stay in Texas.

"Tom loves the terrain and open ranges of Texas so much," Judith said.

"When he was a child in Kenya, he was responsible for herding his father's cows to the watering hole each day, so Central Texas reminds him of his village."

"The Army will lose a great officer," said Lt. Col. Clarence White, MCTD division chief. "While at OTC, Tom was the test officer for the Automated Installation Entry System, and he was a key player in the development of the evaluation strategy review for the National Security Agency's image file format system. He also had a major role in the Limited User Test for the General Fund Enterprise Business System."