365 days
215 letters
98 IMs
18 phone calls
2 halves of a broken heart

2-3 weeks until I see this smiling face again.

We're almost there, husband.
2 squeezes

Posted by: Sarah at 02:44 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Random thought: I still don't understand how the Trojans fell for that stupid horse.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:36 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Amritas mentions the French nickname for McDonald's: MacDo. Once when I was in France, my friends and I were walking to the McDonald's, laughing and talking to each other in the parking lot. A man pushing a baby stroller passed us and began yelling at us to speak French or go home. "This is France, we speak French here!" We were dumbfounded, and as he walked away, we noted how ironic it was that he had just walked out of the biggest symbol of American soft power -- where he had likely uttered the words un Big Mac et un Sprite s'il vous plait -- and he had the nerve to tell us not to speak English. Can you imagine that same scenario in the US: going to a Mexican restaurant and yelling at patrons not to speak Spanish?

Ahh, the French.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:30 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I said last week that our Rear D is doing a stellar job. Well, I just hit a stupid snag that opened up a whole can of worms.

I have Red 6's car. And his car keys, house keys, and cell phone. I check on his apartment, I get his mail, I help arrange his vacation plans, and I even have made hotel reservations for one of his soldiers. Whatever, I'm a helpful girl. But I realized at the FRG meeting that I need to be notified when he arrives in Germany because he won't be able to tell me himself. Each wife gets a call roughly six hours before her husband gets home, but we only get notified when our husbands arrive, not when other planes of our battalion's soldiers get in. So I asked to get a phone call when Red 6 arrives, so I can welcome him home, give him his car, and let him into his house.

And I got a nasty look like I was arranging something lewd.

Look, I know there are some skanky men and women around here, but I'm not doing anything gross, and it kinda stung that that was the immediate reaction I got. Especially when the Rear D already knows that I have Red 6's car because I had to pick up his registration from them last spring. After the initial condescending look and hesitation, I reminded them that Red 6 has no way of getting home or getting into his house unless I am there for him, and they agreed to call me. I was a little taken aback, but whatever.

I mentioned this story to my husband yesterday, just as a "check out what happened to me" sort of deal, and he went ballistic. My husband is not a ballistic sort of person. He got so mad that Red 6's company was treating me bad when I was doing so much for their own soldiers, and he said he was going to do something about it. Oh crap.

So I got a message from Red 6 today that he had talked to the husband and was mad too, that he had talked to the First Sergeant and told him to ream the FRL, etc, etc, etc. So now I've gotten someone in trouble when that wasn't my intention at all. Sure, I was a little peeved that someone insinuated that I was being a whore, but that's not the first time our close relationship with Red 6 has brought me that sort of treatment. He's my husband's best friend. That makes him my best friend. And if you think I'm gonna have an affair with someone who thinks chugging tobasco is a smart move, you're off your rocker.

The sad thing is that our most recent battalion newsletter called for "designated huggers", for wives to volunteer to come to the ceremonies and welcome home single soldiers, not just their own husbands. I thought it was a great idea, and one darling wife had a t-shirt made that says Designated Hugger. But if the Rear D is going to treat us like hookers when we ask to be informed of single soldiers' arrivals, then what's the point of asking for huggers? It makes no sense to me. Either they trust us to show our soldiers respect and admiration, or they ask us not to come. But don't ask us to be huggers and then smirk at us when we roger that.

I help Red 6 and his soldiers because I want to show all soldiers that I love and appreciate them. They all deserve to have someone there to pick them up and buy them a beer. I hate that I got leered at when I asked to do our best friend a favor, but I also hate that I got someone in trouble, because I don't want to look like the officer's wife went and complained she was being treated badly. Ugh.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:06 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 I, for one, would like to thank you profoundly for supporting the troops. As a former soldier, I know what it means to have that kind of support. It's a wonderful thing. When I read this, it put me in mind of something that happened to me at Ft. Bliss. I was attached to a training brigade there for a short time and was having some trouble with the higher-ups in command. I won't go into the details, but the situation made my wife so mad that she took it upon herself to call the Secretary of the Army! And she actually got to speak with him! You can only imagine the look on my First Seargent's face when I had to tell him to be expecting a call the next morning. Not fun.

Posted by: Drew at February 12, 2005 11:21 AM (zEdFo)

2 Don't hate that you might have gotten someone in trouble. Small minds like to assume that their 'moral superiority' gives them the right to question and 'spin' a perfectly innocent and legitimate request like yours. To say nothing of the fact that it's none 'o their damn business as to why you're asking to be notified. But I guess in the future, RED6 should probably clear all his personal arraignments thru the FRL so as not to cause them any discomfort as to what they think they know. I've served as a Family Readiness SNCO for a deployed unit and there is no excuse for the treatment that you've described. NONE-period.

Posted by: Top_S__USMC at February 12, 2005 12:47 PM (J7FBQ)

3 Perhaps you’re being too sensitive. After all, you did state: “I'm doing anything gross.” (Ha!)

Posted by: Bob at February 12, 2005 01:13 PM (Xbhpv)

4 Heh. Freudian slip fixed

Posted by: Sarah at February 12, 2005 09:57 PM (ZpuzV)

5 Sarah - you have a right to be angry about that type of treatment. Just remember - people project on you what they think of themselves... I think it's great that you are so open and caring - it is because of people like you that men like Neal have something happy to return to - a caring friend. Don't let the turkeys get you down. You did the right thing. You deserve more respec than they are giving you. Stand up for yourself. You are doing a good thing.

Posted by: Kathleen A at February 13, 2005 01:10 AM (vnAYT)

6 "And if you think I'm gonna have an affair with someone who thinks chugging tobasco is a smart move, you're off your rocker." ROTFL!

Posted by: Beth at February 13, 2005 01:14 AM (wAd1w)

7 Funny... when not in your shoes of course. Great that he is coming home. Are you expecting the husband home soon too? I remember that you weren't sure about that scheduled vacation :-) Cheers, Agnieszka Denver, CO

Posted by: Agnieszka O. at February 13, 2005 01:40 AM (MUNUu)

8 Sarah it's just like we always said in the Army. F**k 'em if they can't take a joke. You're doing good work. Keep doing it.

Posted by: David at February 13, 2005 11:45 PM (XWUew)

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I started feeling tears well up in my eyes as I read this story. And then I let out a long, deliberate ho...ly...crap when I got to the punchline.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:50 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Amritas pointed me towards John Ray's response to an article about how much better Europe is. Hud has an interesting post on Europe's stagnant economy. Both of them made me think about my friends' jobs.

Some jobs here on post are German contract jobs, and the only two Americans I know who have these jobs are my friends who work for the quartermaster here. When soldiers have TA-50 that needs to be laundered, they bring it to my friends. My friends sort it, tag it, and bag it for when the laundry trucks come. They don't actually launder anything; they are just the middle men for the operation. Some days they're quite busy, especially at the end of a deployment. Other days they see very few customers. If no one is coming in, they can do whatever they want: homework, quilting, knitting, watching DVDs, hanging out with Sarah.

Remember, they're employed by the Germans. For this job that a monkey could do, they get paid 10 Euros an hour (which is $13 right now). They work only 20 hours per week each but get six weeks of paid vacation plus Kindergeld (the child allowance the German government gives you just for having a child). They know that they have it good; if they did this same job in the States, no doubt it would be minimum wage ($5.15 per hour, not $13), and there would be no benefits since it's just a part-time job.

I'm glad that my friends have such a great job, but I simply can't understand it. How can the Germans afford to pay them so much for a sinecure? They make more than I did teaching English for the college! I think part of Europe's problem is that they pay way too much for jobs that require no skill. I don't know how they'll continue to give lavish benefits to the monkey jobs.

(No offense, girls: you know I'd love to get paid to knit.)

Posted by: Sarah at 04:19 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I have a couple of things I want to blog about, but to be honest I've been feeling too grumpy lately. Today was just one of those days where everything went wrong: I drove to the next post to re-register our car and realized that I had left my ID in the pocket of my gym sweatshirt. So I drove all the way home and back, only to find that they close for lunch, which they failed to mention when I called for their hours. I got the car registered and then went to drop the dog's stuff off at my friend's house; naturally I had forgotten her key. And so on. Just one of those days.

But it's more than just that: I can tell that I am getting irritable with the end of the deployment. My husband has been on ten billion long-term missions before, but the one this week seriously irks me. I'm grumpy that 1-77 returned from Iraq after only 361 days. I nearly ripped some heads off last night at the FRG meeting; why would you attend a briefing on the redeployment schedule and then just sit there and loudly gossip with the wife next to you, making it impossible for others to hear the guest speaker even when she was using a microphone?

I'm finally tired of the deployment. Thank heavens I've only felt this way for a week; I can't imagine being one of those people who's felt this way all year.

They say PTSD and Combat Operational Stress can include loss of motivation, crying spells, and irritability. Chalk me up as a sufferer.

Posted by: Sarah at 12:36 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Steve of Hog on Ice is a Native American, just like Ward Churchill.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:35 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Interesting news:

Under a plan unveiled to Congress on Wednesday, active duty soldiers could expect two years at their home base after a year of deployment. Reservists would see five years of “dwell time” after each year in active duty service, and Guardsmen would have four to five years at home between deployments.

Army Secretary Francis Harvey said that plan likely wonÂ’t go into effect until at least 2007, when other major training and force adaptations are complete. Officials want to shift the service to a brigade combat team focus over the next two years, growing from 33 brigades to 44.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:48 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Lex: "Did it ever occur to you that maybe the hero of the story is Segeth?"
Best ending line in a Smallville ever.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There's a contest to create a new EU flag. My favorite is the second one down here. I'm still laughing out loud.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:28 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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FX is making a TV show about Iraq. Cool. But unfortunately all they can show is good soldiers doing their job.

But not any and every angle of war is being depicted. One aspect is glaringly absent from most projects: negativity. The U.S. soldier is the hero; his cause is just. Storylines featuring the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal or war protests are no-nos.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: damn those Abu Ghraib soldiers. Because of a handful of dirtbags, every mention of Operation Iraqi Freedom from now on will have some disclaimer about torture at Abu Ghraib. It used to be that every article about the war had that line about the number of troops who had died since Bush waved his Mission Accomplished banner. Now every article has to mention something about Abu Ghraib.

There are plenty of stories that can be told from Iraq without harping on the naked pyramids. Tell a story like SFC Smith's. Tell about 1SG Kasal, shot seven times and still fighting. You want humor? Throw in syrup chugging. You want suspense? Follow the soldiers of 2-2 INF as they kicked in doors in Fallujah. You want drama? Good and decent soldiers are dying all the time, and there's never a dry eye in the house.

Just don't tell me that what people want to see when they turn on a program about Iraq is scandal and unethical behavior. There's plenty of that crap on Nip/Tuck.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:45 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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These photos are simply hilarious. (Found via CavX's sidebar) Also this is funny.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:55 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Did you see that CB's signed a book deal? Commenters at Armor Geddon keep suggesting Red 6 do the same about his time in Fallujah.

Me and Red 6, before he got all famous on us!

I told him when he gets home, as payback for all the boxes I've lugged up to his apartment and trips to the travel agent, he owes me steak and Cristal. He said, "more like Santa Fe Gorditas and Dr. Pepper." Ha. I realized the other day that not only has my husband been gone for a year, but so has one of our best friends. I can't wait to hang out with him again.

(I am seriously out of focus in that photo. What's the deal?)

Posted by: Sarah at 09:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've been meaning to point out something Oda Mae steered me towards:
Cox & Forkum's tribute to Ayn Rand

Posted by: Sarah at 04:05 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Mud wrestling? My husband's platoon barely has time to eat or sleep, and some units in Iraq have time for parties that would make fraternities jealous? What on earth is going on?

I've avoided writing about it so far, but one of the hardest things about the deployment for me to handle is the difference in mission. Some soldiers are working around the clock while others have so much free time that they're bored or causing trouble. Where is the sense in that?

I know I'm biased and think that my husband works harder than anyone else in Iraq. And maybe he does get more down time than I'm led to believe. But his company's sector is the size of Kosovo, so he doesn't even have time to go to the gym or talk to me. He's allowed 30 minutes on the computer, but often he doesn't take the full time because he's got too much to do. When he was in Najaf, he fell asleep on the phone with me: his platoon was working four hour shifts with two hour breaks (four on, two off, four on, two off) for an entire month. Not all units in Iraq are doing that.

I am trying to understand the distribution of missions in Iraq, but I can't. I hope that when my husband comes home, I can ask him more about what he's done. Perhaps I've misunderstood, but I think at the end of the day my husband would be far too tired to go to a mud wrestling party.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:21 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Bunker pointed out a great post by Michael Totten. The hook:

Believe me, you donÂ’t know what a tense political fight feels like until the person yelling at you is from a country you recently bombed and currently occupy.

It's was a very interesting evening. And don't miss the Iraqi's one sentence summary of feelings towards the US.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I know it was a commercial and it was staged, but it sure choked me up. We OCONUS folks can watch the Anheuser-Busch Super Bowl ad here. I don't care if we are in Germany; Budweiser is still the king of beers.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Yesterday I came home from the middle school all fired up to write. I sat in on some classes, and I think 7th graders aren't as scary as I'd imagined. I had some observations that I was going to post -- nothing too riveting -- when I walked in the house to find a big old mess.

I'm still dogsitting, and the dog had gotten sick all over the rug. I couldn't even tell which end it had come from! I borrowed my friend's steam vac and cleaned it all up, and then dumped the dog in the tub for a bath. And immediately after his bath, he threw up again. It was a long, disgusting evening.

Lately my husband and I have had the worst timing. He logged online while I was wrestling with the dog in the tub. Two nights ago I heard him log on and I jumped up so fast I dumped my drink all over the recliner. Last week the phone rang six times during our ten minute chat.

I think we just need to talk face to face instead. And maybe wait a little while until we get our own puppy.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:27 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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My friend sent me a wonderful email forward:

To all,

Rarely do I send emails to everyone in the command. I highly suggest you take 3 minutes and 12 seconds (the length of this video) out of your day to view the fruits of your labor. With all the negative spin and focused attention on the struggles, difficulties, and bloodshed going on in Iraq, this should be a true verification of what the REALISM is behind our sacrifice and dedication as American Soldiers. As an augmented Special Forces guy on the ground in Iraq during the early part of the war, I saw it every single day. But trying to communicate what that is like, is often difficult. If this doesn't make you proud to be an American, and TREASURE what we have built here in the United States, now alive and well in Iraq, then nothing will. To each and all who have given everything to uphold, support, and defend FREEDOM THROUGH MILITARY VICTORY, I offer my personal thanks for a job WELL DONE.

http://adamkeiper.blogs.com/comparevideo/files/Iraq_Election.wmv

Very Respectfully,
LCDR Keith Harrison, USN

So go watch it. And smile.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:02 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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