Your good news round up of the week! This week’s is a little short, but not due to the lack of good news available. I hope you enjoy and we’ll wait and see what great news next week will bring us. Have a blessed week.
Below was my response to my first piece of “hate mail” as a military spouse blogger. I was told to get a life, since I couldn’t possibly have one if all I could find time to do was sit around and write about being a military wife and mother. This was sent back when both of my guys were gone.
I’ve come a long way baby! Earlier this year my blog was linked to by WaPo and I was flamed by the best of them. I got death wishes, and people telling me that they hope my son would come home in a box. It’s a good thing that most of us military wives are tough as nails when we need to be. I have learned a lot over the past few years, to say the least!
I hope you enjoy reading my response as much as I enjoyed writing it! Hooah!
***********************************************************
Well the cat’s out of the bag now. I have no life. I have no identity and I have nothing more to do than to over identify myself with the career choices of my husband and son. I have received my first negative comment via email from someone who thinks I need to “get a life” and stop hiding behind the identities of my guys. OK, then.
Let me break it down for you. Here’s the deal — you will either understand this or you won’t. I can’t change your understanding. I can only offer you information to help you gain insight into my choices, but I can’t make you gain perspective. Perspective comes through an experience that causes a shift within your own mind that allows you to see things that maybe you weren’t able to see before (or see them differently in some cases).
It’s a similar concept of leading a horse to water. I can give the horse the information, such as “here’s the water and you should drink it and this is why.” Until the horse tastes the water for himself, has an epiphany, or he becomes so parched that the misery makes him realize that drinking the water is a good idea, then his perspective is more than likely not going to change. Something must happen in order to prod him into taking the information provided to him — which is hypothetical and unobserved, and acting on it and experiencing it, and therefore replacing unobserved information with something provisional and empirical. So, you may gleam something from this, and you may not. Ultimately for me it’s a response and an airing out of the thoughts the note provoked. Nothing more, nothing less.
First and foremost the accusation that I somehow lack an identity due to the fact that I choose to have a public blog about my husband and my son, who are both are soldiers, is an interesting allegation to bring against me. I am not quite sure how anyone could come to any hard and fast facts about the identity, or the lack thereof, of an individual based on a public blog. You may be able to have glances into the preferences that an individual has, but the Internet and blogging is ultimately a uni-dimensional world that leaves us with little more to judge another by outside of words, pictures, maybe some video and music they choose. I am far more complex than my blog would allow for me to communicate. Trust me, and if you can’t take my word for it, just ask my husband!
With that said I think that there are also many reasons why I do identify and align myself so closely with my soldiers. I actually identified myself as Mr. Hooah!’s wife when he was better known as “Mr. Polymer-science-guy!” I would have started a blog about it, but to be honest I don’t think that I would have had much of a readership. The truth of the matter is he went to work everyday, played with chemicals, and came home. He didn’t glow in the dark and there were no explosions (fires are another story, but that may be blog fodder for another day). I don’t think that a blog entitled “Knee Deep in the Polymers” would take off, so I simply did not write it up. I was still his wife, and he very much identifies himself as my husband. It’s nice that it works that way, and it makes for a good marriage.
As far as my son goes, I have always over identified with my kids. I can’t help it. I still do it to this day. I am Mike’s mom, I am Emma’s mom, I am “his mom,” or “her mom,” and I have even been known as “the cookie mom!” I have been a mom for over 23 years now. I am a professional mom. I have been a mom longer than I have been a social worker. I love being a mom. I guess being a wife and mother is the main crux of my identity, but it’s not my identity because I couldn’t find another one to posses!
I don’t align myself with my family because I am so pathetic I couldn’t find myself in the real world. This is the real world for me. Isn’t it ironic that if I were to choose a career path such as my path in social work, and throw myself into my work and become the best in my field that somehow I would have an identity. Yet doing the same thing at home and with my family leaves me rendered as someone who sadly needs a life. I do, by the way, have a CV that would knock your socks off. I am more impressed with my family though, so that is why I focus on this topic.
Actually if “getting a life” comes with a paid vacation then I may put a resume in for one!
I am proud of my guys. I am proud of our Military. When my guys joined it affected me in every way. It made me proud, it made me scared, it made me cry and it made me feel dread and joy intertwined. This is not something you will ever understand for yourself, until you personally and deeply love a soldier. I never felt it all like that before. I feel it now, and this is now my perspective. Until this war ends the only experience I have in this military life is loving two soldiers, deeply, who are serving during a time of war. I can’t tell you how it feels to have them in garrison with little to no concern that they will be deployed and face combat at some point. I hope one day I will get to gain that perspective!
Identity is nothing more than a concept regarding the way we comprehend ourselves as humans, as dynamic beings and as beings with an interpersonal bonding to those whom we love. When the ones we share that bond with have a job that puts them at risk everyday — significant risk at times, then it does have a deep affect on those who are in that supportive role. We all deal with it in the best way we know how. Some deal with it in ways that are adaptive and some maladaptive, but regardless we do the best we can with what we have.
I do not have my husband here or my son, but I do have our home and my other children, and I have this computer and this blog. It’s how I process my stress, fears, frustrations and anxieties that pop up from time to time. It’s not my identity. I am only a blogger for a couple of hours in the evenings, but I am wife to Mr. Hooah! all the time and mother to “ToySoldier” all the time. It never ends, it never stops, and that is the identity I have chosen, proudly.
Can you believe that we are already into October? I remember back in February and March of this year vividly. ToySoldier was still in Baqubah and there was a lot of buzz hitting the airwaves. We all knew that once Spring arrived there would be an upswing in the fighting and violence in Iraq.
Did it happen? Sure. There was a mild upswing, but nothing at all like the years before. That was, to me anyway, a huge indicator of the massive defeat that AQI had taken. Spring and summer are their fighting seasons. When the show they had to offer was really not much of a show at all, it was an indicator of what they were capable of — and that was massively diminished from the years before. I wonder if Harry Reid is ready yet to recind his infamous “This war is lost” proclamation? I guess he’ll rescind when Murtha apologizes to the Marines…. and hell freezes over. Enough of my babbling this morning. Good morning and enjoy your good news for the week!
(more…)
I am going to tell on myself here, and I hope you all can forgive me. I blog a day early, set the publish time for the next morning and I am usually not even online when my blog hits the screen. It’s not scandalous like lip-syncing to my own voice at a concert or anything. It does feel just a tad deceptive on my end though. I am a very “what you see is what you get” kind of woman, so I felt it would be good to come clean and confess my pre-blogging habits. I don’t do it all the time everywhere, but I do it here every Sunday evening and post it on Monday morning (that also gives me time to come in and read Julie’s blog which I happen to enjoy quite well!)
Confessions of early blogging is not what I wanted to say about courage, but I wanted to mention it because last Monday morning when my blog appeared on the screen here at VAJoe’s I was under anesthesia and in the thick of surgery. Last Monday morning I had to have a complete hysterectomy and I have been lying low trying to recover. The surgery was tough but successful. I feel like I am handling the recovery very wisely — which is to say I am doing nothing but taking care of myself and taking it very easy.
So, with that being said, I wanted to post an entry today that I wrote a while back about courage and my own struggle to understand exactly what courage is, how it’s displayed and whether or not I possess any of my own. Have a blessed week, and I am sure that within the next couple of weeks I will be up and at ‘em and back to my old self. Actually, I think I will be even better!
**************************************************
When I was in undergrad as a BSW major I dabbled in Philosophy. I was just one class away from being able to declare it as my minor, but decided against taking that last class due to overload. The final semester for a BSW consists of a full time internship, and the very nature of social work is working with client populations that have major stress factors attached at every angle. Also, at this point in my education I had become very disenchanted with the study of Philosophy. It seemed as if there was too much value placed on who could ask the most profound question instead of who could provide anyone with the most profound evidence.
This frustration with academic Philosophy hit a peak for me when I was told during a class that there was no way to prove that evil truly exists. Well, to be quite honest in the convoluted vacuum of Metaphysics there is no way to prove that any of us exists. OK, so now that we are all just a figment of one another’s imaginations maybe we can all agree on something! That was my hope, but the questions would just get more bizarre, and to be honest at that time I couldn’t bring myself to care about the the impracticality in the study anymore. I was taking care of young children in the field of mental health whose minds, bodies, and little spirits had been ravaged by adults who possessed nothing in the lines of a soul or a conscience. I remember the statement “You can’t prove that evil exists!” when I read the file of a young girl who had not said a word in years, but rather barked like a dog because being a puppy was better and safer than being a baby girl. Don’t tell me evil does not exist!
Then I remember hearing the arguments around human characteristics and attributes. Of course there were many discussions around the subjectivity of human experiences like love and death. We even discussed courage one day. I don’t remember the entire discussion around courage. I think I may have nodded off to sleep for a moment. Courage was a word to those in the class that meant everything from being strong enough to voice your stance on an issue, to wearing your hair green if you wanted to. I think that they got the term courage and pluckiness confused. Dying your hair green does not take sacrifice and love. Voicing your opinion may or may not. I found the whole topic disturbing, and it still bothers me to this day. What is courage if it is not the things that were discussed in my class that day? Being a dual military family, and having the incredible privilege to know other military wives and parents has given me the opportunity to understand courage a little more. Here are some acts of courage that I have been blessed to witness:
Courage is the young soldier who packs his ruck diligently to head over to the Middle East. He may be scared, but his heart is strong and he faces his fears with the reassurance that he has been prepared adequately and his family is behind him.
Courage is displayed by the wife who kisses her husband good-bye for the last time before the sand from that distant and dangerous place will kiss his face for a year, or more. She will walk away broken hearted and full of fear, but she will smile at her kids and act like she just knows that he will be fine — even when she doesn’t know it for sure in her heart.
Courage is evident in the young person who walks into the Recruiters station ready to say the words “I want to serve.” Knowing that our Country is at war, and that the chances of deployment are imminent does not stop the desire to fulfill his duty. Actually, those threats make his desire to serve all the more strong.
Courage is witnessed by those around the young soldier’s mother when he is deployed. She hangs her yellow ribbon on her tree, she will talk to anyone who will listen, and she will defend his mission with every fiber in her body. She knows that even in the face of doubts and arguments about the war, her son must hear words of encouragement and words of belief in order for his morale to stay high.
Courage is the single father who is watching his young son prepare for deployment. He is both proud and mortified, and he aches to be with his son in battle. He has never been known to sit back idly while his children tread where danger is, but this time he must. He will pack care packages and send a cigar once in a while to say to his beloved son “I know you are a capable man!”
Courage is the American who refuses to collapse and be crippled in the face of threats of terrorism. It is the American who remembers vividly the pictures, sounds and smells of where she was on September 11, 2001, but still refuses to live in dread. It is the American who dug his heals into the ground and decided resolutely that day that he would not stop seeing his loved ones on the opposite coast and he would not stop his career because it involved flying. He faces his fear and adversity with a stone resolve.
Courage is evident in the husband and wife who decide that it is a sacrifice worth making for him to stay an extra tour instead of coming home when planned. That extra year of sacrifice will be a difficult path to walk, but they face their adversity together and cling to the hope of reunification.
I still can not define exactly what courage is, but I can recognize it when I see it. I am coming to understand that courage can not ever be divorced from love, commitment, and morality. They are all individual strands, but part of the same braid. You have to love with your whole heart before you can truly display courage. You have to commit yourself to the task at hand immediately and completely so you will not waiver when the sea of trial tosses you around. Courage may seem like a subjective experience or idea, but I can recognize it and admire it, and sometimes I am even able to emulate it.
Here’s your good news thread for the week. There are more than a dozen stories that journal another week of this war and the post-surge Iraq. Enjoy reading all of the successes we are seeing through out Iraq. These good news threads are possible due to the hard work and sacrifice of our troops. (more…)
I battled a lot of turmoil during deployment. It was a constant struggle within my own heart to hold back when I heard the war being talked about. I have finally decided to air my grievances. This is not going to a long and nasty note where I drop names (like I even know any!), and expose scandals. No, this is just a mother who still feels the sting, and a little battered and bruised from the battle on the home front. I need to find a way to collect these thoughts, air them out, and put them away.
I am not harboring resentment, nor is this some long and old anger that needs to be put to rest. This is more of a collective pain. This is something that hurts me, personally, but it also hurts me because I know it hurts other parents and spouses of Veterans. What I am talking about are comments and remarks that belittle and mock the sacrifices of our Troops.
I have never in my own life witnessed an event that hails so many experts. Virtually everyone in the world has their opinion on the Iraq war, from the newborn to the almost dead — and it is almost never expressed as an opinion. It is usually expressed as fact. I have nothing against opposing view points. I think that practicing a form of discourse around vital topics where we express an antithesis to a movement is a very powerful and wonderful thing to witness. We are created to think critically of this world we are blessed with. We are not stagnant, inanimate, insensate beings, but rather we are dynamic, vivid and passionate. I do not begrudge any one’s opinion in the sense that I respect their right to own it. I do begrudge insensitivity and careless words that hurt those who are hurting — just because someone has the right to do something doesn’t mean that it is always beneficial.
Does Mr. Public have the right to call our troops “baby killers?” Yes, folks that slur is being used in this war too. Of course Mr. Public has the right to say things that are misinformed and downright erroneous, but it is not beneficial. Does Mrs. Public have the right to say that our soldiers are nothing more than “cannon fodder?” Yes, and my answer is the same. What Mr. and Mrs. Public may or may not know is when those words, or words like them, hit the ears of a Vet’s family it hurts. It is hateful, it is hurtful, and it is cruel. It is not only non-beneficial, but it is also down right destructive.
I am painfully aware of what my son has given up to fight in this war. He did not ask for this war, but he answered the call for this Country. He answered the call so that we could have our ideas and have the freedom to express them without the fear of anyone silencing us. He went to war to fight terrorism, and you know what — that is precisely what he is doing.
He is 23 years old. The day he turned 21 he was in the field for his AIT in Infantry. He did not have a wonderful birthday bash with all of his friends. He did not get to order his first beer. He did not get cake, presents and goodies. He got an MRE, a rainy day, and no sleep before a very long ruck march. The day he turned 22 he landed in Germany on his way to Kuwait. I am proud of him, and I very proud of his attitude while making these sacrifices. It’s his job, and he does it well.
He will never again hit those milestones in his life. When he came home from war, he was older than his civilian counter-parts. He was older emotionally, mentally and physically. He has gone without sleep when they were sleeping in, he has gone without a proper meal when they were grabbing a burger in a drive-thru, he has used night vision, when they have been watching movies with friends, and the list goes on and on. It is amazing to me how much of life’s pleasures I had taken for granted. Until Mike was deployed I seriously never thought about our Troops when I was sitting down to a hot meal in my home… now my prayers are longer, deeper and they are for thousands instead of just for my family.
I am not pointing all of this out for sympathy. My son joined a volunteer Army of his own free will and his own accord. He is a bright young man with a very strong will. I am pointing this out because as a parent there is nothing harder than to watch the son or daughter you raised, nurtured and love go off to battle and then feel as if there are those who would use their sacrifice as a soap box for their own agenda. My son’s back has enough weight on it without it being used to prop up somebody’s opinions!
I would appreciate it if I didn’t have hear comments like “we can never win the war in Iraq,” “our soldiers are fighting for nothing,” “they are nothing more than cannon fodder… etc.” My son is not cannon fodder, thank you very much. “The troops” may be simply a talking point for some over lunch, but they have names, they have wives or husbands, they have mothers, daughters, sons and fathers. They deserve to be treated with some common decency.
Now, in closing let me say that I have done a good job holding my tongue — I try to be very diplomatic when I am dealing with stuff like this. I do believe very much that “a gentle word turns away wrath.” I am not encouraging people to start beating protesters over the head with their own signs (no, I am not… I promise!), but can we not learn to show just a shred of decency to one another?
Can we not try and offer a word that expresses our opinions on matters without dragging our troops through the mud and hurting their families with careless words? We can. It’s a matter of tact and a matter of decency. There’s a stark contrast between kindness and cruelty.
A Run to Remember
Story by Lance Cpl. Casey Jones
Posted on 09.20.2008 at 01:20AM
By Lance Cpl. Casey Jones
Regimental Combat Team 1
Excerpt
RAMADI, Iraq - The Marines and sailors of 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, came together to honor and remember service members killed during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, Aug. 24, 2008. (more…)
I wrote this little piece back last Fall while Bryan was gone. I call it the REAL fantasy of an Army wife. Enjoy.
As I Stand Raking
It was a crisp Saturday in early November that year, and our back yard was covered with leaves already. The drought in our little Northeast corner of Tennessee had left the trees crunchy and dry instead of supple and bright. The leaves were not their normal fantastic array of bright hues. The “fall” of the leaves, which normally takes a month, happened in just a couple of days. I was left standing at the back door looking across the yard and dreading the hard work ahead of me.
My back yard is not huge, but it is full of beautiful trees. Not one Evergreen among them, mind you. They are all large, full and beautiful. I am a sap for this time of year normally. There is nothing I love more than an earth-tone patchwork quilt covering the yard. That year the yard only looked neglected. The leaves were dead before they hit the ground. I heaved a sigh, put on my gloves, checked my pocket to be sure my cell phone was there, turned on and turned up. The first thing I learned when both my husband and son simultaneously deployed was to never allow my cell phone to go dead, and never set it down out of hearing range for one moment.
Grabbing my trusty rake and my gardening gloves, I head for the top of the hill. My thoughts drift quite a bit. It is easy to let them go because I really do not want to be here on this day. Daydreaming is how I get through when I am running cross-country. I kind of drift between lucid thought and a daydream state. Seasoned athletes call the dream state a “zone.” It is a forced altered state of consciousness that is used to stave off the driving desire to give up.
I begin raking, and I am making very little progress. Regardless, I keep moving and doing. My thoughts drift back and forth between my husband and my son. I am laughing in my mind at something Bryan said before he left, and I am remembering the last chat I had with my son Mike, before he left for Baghdad. I am thinking about all of my children, the housework that needs doing, and bills that need paying. I am drifting and raking and thinking.
Suddenly I feel a twinge. It is not in my back or my knee. It is in my heart and it is a small taste of resentment mixed gingerly with a nice twist of guilt. The resentment is fleeting and small, but the guilt is large and overwhelming.
“Here I am having a pity party for myself over having to rake these leaves.” I scolded myself for thinking “If Bryan were here…, or if Mike were here…”
Those of us left on the home front are tired and busy too. I wish they were home, but for that moment I wished they were home for the wrong reasons. I was not fantasizing about their homecoming or hugging their necks. I was fantasizing about them raking while I rest, and consequently I taste guilt.
It is not just the raking that has me blue. Everything is so overwhelming some days. There are days where my little daughter does not want to cooperate with anything. She has her papa’s will and his uncanny ability to convince me of just about anything. I have the weight of the entire household on my shoulders, twenty-four-seven. Every financial decision, every medical decision, educational, social and disciplinary actions are all mine to think through, decide and act on. When I feel I have made a bad decision, or even just a “less good” one, I get to reap the full benefit of excruciating self-doubt and guilt as well.
Shoot, it’s not even all of that. It’s the fatigue too. I go to bed painfully late, and I get up early. I run all day long, and when the day is over, I spend half of the night cleaning and preparing for the next day. My down time, when I have a sitter for the little one, is spent at appointments or running errands. Of course, sometimes I get the occasional luxury of doing yard work. Wait a minute! I am supposed have a good fantasy to escape this dreaded chore, but I cannot seem to get beyond the undercurrent of guilt that has me ensnared.
About that time in my reverie I hear chattering around me. I look over the fences around me and I see it. I see them. There are men doing yard work. There are wives out there with them pruning and preparing to plant their tulip bulbs after the first freeze. They are chatting, laughing, and helping each other. I suddenly feel sad and tired.
Back to raking. I have a few piles going now. A couple of large ones already accumulated pretty fast. My back is sore, and the pity stew I am eating is getting caustic. I lean on my rake for support. It was at this time that a man approached me.
“Hey! I am your neighbor from across the way there. We wanted to welcome you months ago, but haven’t had time. You all military, huh?”
I startled as he loudly blurted out the greeting. He pointed toward a pretty house across the way and continued,
“My wife will be here in a minute, but we noticed you have a lot of work to do here and with your husband gone and all.”
I open my mouth to ask him how he knows we are military and how he knows that my husband is gone, but then flashing before my eyes are men in ACUs standing in my driveway, Go Army! stickers on my car, huge American and Blue Star flags, and my even huger yellow ribbon wrapped around my front yard tree. I guess it’s obvious.
The man explains that he was out doing yard work and his wife prompted him to come and offer me a hand with mine. She was walking over the pathway at this time, she had a huge smile on her face, and a hand extended before she even made it to my yard. She is pretty, warm and very easy to chat with. Her husband disappeared for a moment and she and I stood there chatting. When he came back, he had three other men with him! They all had rakes, leaf bags and even clippers! The wife of the first man says, “Let’s go sit on the deck, chat and we’ll let these guys finish this work for you today!”
I am so overwhelmed that I am standing on the ledge ready to jump off and into a vat of insane weeping. I cannot believe it! She is so easy to talk with. I normally am quite a stoic, but with her, I can just talk and share these burdens and the loneliness that at times is overwhelming. I do not think I have ever talked so candidly to anyone other than my husband about how difficult it can be some days. I purge the pity stew I had feasted on earlier.
Suddenly the cat is out of the bag. Claire confesses all. She is tired, wore out, and sick of being strong. I know it is just that kind of day and I will get through. That is no comfort in the moment though. No more room for pity. My new friend and I just moved into the realm of brutal honesty.
What feels like a mere five minutes later, I look up and notice that my yard looks fantastic. I am ready to cry again, but this time out of relief and gratitude. I offer everyone a drink, but they refuse, insisting that they are fine. They say “Thank your husband and my son for their service to our Country.” I hear that a lot and I always pass the message along. I wonder if these people realize that they just thanked me for holding the fort down and working so hard to keep it all going smoothly while my soldiers are actively serving. They took a moment to offer a helping hand in a very tangible way; a small way that made a huge difference to a discouraged and tired neighbor.
I stood up and extended my arm to shake my new found friends’ hands, but I hear a very loud roaring motor in the background. It is loud and intrusive. So loud, in fact, that it shook my universe for just a moment. I looked at my extended hand, and there sitting in it was a rake. I looked around me and I was standing in my backyard. All around me are crunchy leaves. The loud roar that viciously ripped me from my daydream is a neighbor’s lawn mower.
Within those dry, crackly leaves I found a momentary oasis. Sure it was just a fantasy, but it was a real fantasy had by a real Army wife.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Here’s your weekly dose of good news from the front lines.
Your weekly dose of good news from the front lines. (more…)