Category: military

We Don’t Forget…

Today we are loading up a PODS container and beginning to see all the boxes appearing, dust coming off of things that haven’t been moved in forever and cabinets opened to groans — “WHY did we keep all this crap this whole time???” But while we’re going through the motions of another PCS, in the back of our minds, we’re also thinking about those we’ve known who won’t have the privilege of suffering through another crappy moving experience. Because while it certainly sucks — it is a PLEASURE. You know why? Because The Major has always come back. Every time they’ve sent him somewhere crappy. Every time I didn’t get to hear from him for weeks because he was forward deployed. Every time I have been so worried… he has come home. And that isn’t always the case.

We are part of an aviation community. And while accidents happen in all arms of the services, here at home and in theater, when they happen in airplanes and helicopters, people don’t tend to survive. And we hear news regularly about accidents here at home that happen on what those families thought were just regular old workdays and school days. And I don’t forget that. When I send my kids off to school and The Major leaves in his flight suit and kisses me goodbye as he heads out the door to an early brief, I don’t forget what he’s out there doing. I have tried, but when you live near an airbase, you hear, see and feel jets and helicopters ALL the time. And it is impossible to forget that it’s my husband up there, flying at nearly the speed of sound in a metal container. (All in a day’s work, right?) But he has always come home.

So this post, like this day, is dedicated to those who didn’t come home. We continue to go through our day to day, a proud military family putting up with whatever crap comes with it, in their honor. We don’t forget them or the families who miss them every day, not just today. Thank you for the sacrifice. We will never be able to repay you for what you gave to this country.

The Meddling Media

I love gossip as much as the next girl… when someone leaves a copy of US weekly or People in the loo at work, I will admit to occasionally taking a bit longer than needed to do my business so I can get a glimpse of Mariah Carey’s ridiculous nursery or Oprah’s changing looks through the years. But I have to draw the line between those who choose to be public figures and those who do absolutely nothing purposefully in the interest of becoming the subject of a media frenzy.

I’m talking, of course, about Ahhhhnold’s love child.  Isn’t this really about the Governator’s bad behavior and NOT about a 14 year old kid? So why did we need to track down the woman involved? Why isn’t it enough to know that he did this thing to his OWN already public family? I feel terrible for his children (all of them, wherever they may be) and his wife — but that’s nothing compared to how I feel about the 14 year old boy who never asked to be made a public figure in this way. He can’t help who his parents are and he certainly isn’t at fault for the way he was conceived. He is undoubtedly already struggling with the difficulties of being 14 — he hardly needs the added scrutiny, pressure and gossip. I’m sure he gets plenty of that at school.

The media often also offers tainted views of our military men and women’s actions overseas. My husband was on the ground in Iraq with a battalion that had an implanted journalist who did a hatchet job on several of the young Marines he pretended to be friends with as soon as he had a controversial idea that would make for a sensational story. I am all for the public seeing the war up close and personal, but I’m not sure there is ever a way to convey to an extremely judgmental public the realities that our warfighters face on a daily basis. That topic is an entire can of worms that I’m not going to open all the way (just popped the lid to let a worm or two squiggle out I guess). But is asking the media to cover ACTUAL NEWS just outside the realm of possibility? Puh-lease?

That’s what he said…

Life with a Marine can be interesting. Not only do I get to tour some extremely scenic locations (uh, yeah, this is sarcasm, folks!), but I have picked up quite a vocabulary! Unfortunately, not only do I live with one Marine who uses some colorful language from time to time, but I work with a few too. As a result, I’ve picked up some phrases — we’ll call them “Majorisms” that I thought I’d share. Ten points if you can use them all in one day after reading this.

1) Regarding something that won’t be well received: “That oughta go over like a fart in church.”

2) Regarding someone who appears to have had better days: “He looked like a bag of smashed a**holes.”

OR

3) “…looks like he got beat with a bag of nickles.”

And my favorite:

4) Best used to explain how little you care about something: “I don’t give two squirts of piss about that.”

I’m sure there are more… I will do a better job making mental notes when The Major offers new ones up (which I swear he does almost every day).

Defining “Dependents”

I had big (huge) plans for a witty and heartfelt post this morning about…something. Something you’d be SO excited to read. Okay, not really. And that’s why when I found this post at the great military spouse blog “They Call Me Dependent,” it just seemed the perfect solution to the lazy blogger’s conundrum. It isn’t that there’s nothing going on at our house — on the contrary, we have scheduled our pack out dates and I’m basically looking at two months of homelessness prior to actually GOING to our new destination — more on all that later. Turbo believes that we are moving because he will soon turn 4 — or at least the two things always come up in the same sentence for him: “I’m going to be 4 so we’re getting a new house.”  Ah… to be that self-centered! 🙂 

Anyway, among all the other things I’m forced to be on a daily basis, the reality is that I am a military spouse under (above?) all else — this one definition of me determines pretty much everything else that I am, since it mandates when we move, where we live, how long we’re there, where my kids go to school and pretty much everything else in our lives that other people can decide for themselves. SO, please take a moment to read today’s post at “Anything but Dependent.” And cheers to some great writing by another military spouse!

The big news — Bin Laden Dead

I’m usually late to the game.  I’m not uber-political and I don’t like to dwell on war news, despite the fact that my husband is rather closely involved in the machinations that make ongoing conflict possible, at least from a “sustainment of the F-18” perspective.  That being said, it’d be impossible not to find oneself in a reflective state of mind after hearing the news of Osama bin Laden’s death.

I’m reading a lot of celebratory news pieces, many of which quote US officials declaring this to be a major victory for our country.  And it’s all falling a bit flat for me.  I guess I can admit that I felt a hatred for this man as strong as any other American’s.  I was living in NYC when the World Trade Center was destroyed, and it sure felt personal then.  I am now feeling slightly unAmerican or unPatriotic for not wanting to celebrate this man’s death.  Don’t get me wrong — I don’t feel remorseful or sad for him, or even for his family.  Anyone who believed with such vehemence in the need to kill as many Westerners as possible has my vote for being taken out.  I feel much the same way about anyone who expresses their religious beliefs with guns and bombs rather than words.  But I do feel like this was a symbolic victory if anything, and am very doubtful that the elimination of one very connected and insidiously powerful man might actually change the course of the wars we are fighting.  It also occurs to me that in the last 10 years, this man has had to exist completely in hiding, which I think must’ve limited his sphere of influence to some degree.  How much pull did he really have in recent events, given the fact that he was unable to speak publicly, use standard means of communication or even walk down the street in his own neighborhood? 

I’m glad he’s gone, but I am not sure it makes me feel much better about the course of these conflicts, and it doesn’t make me feel one lick better about what happened in New York in 2001.