COOL EXERCISE
I watched Casablanca recently and apparently had the same thoughts that Roger L. Simon did. I just scoffed that the movie could ever exist today, but he's (at least as an intellectual exercise) working on the script. It's a great post; thanks for the link, David.
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DEPLOYMENT JUNKIE
My husband has been home from Iraq for three years. Three years. It's embarrassing to type that. I've had him to myself for three years. Not by choice, of course, but what can you say? "I promise he volunteered to go and traded orders with a guy for a case of beer, but it fell through. I swear we haven't been ducking it; he even changed branches so he'd be able to go back." But it still sounds incredible that he's been home so long.
I wrote today at SpouseBUZZ that I can't remember my husband's homecoming day. I was camped out in my archives, trying desperately to remember what I was doing before he got home, but I have no idea. I do know what I was feeling though, since I carried on Tim's tradition and gave a peek at the end to CaliValleyGirl.
Reading that hurts a little though, because I miss that feeling.
I love having my husband home. I need to have my husband home if we're ever going to successfully have a baby. But three years on, I miss the deployment feelings. I miss the sense of connectedness, of purpose, of conviction. It probably sounds strange, but I miss the feeling of sacrifice, of knowing that I've given up being with someone I love for the good of our country. Honestly, for me, the deployment feeling hurts, but it's a good hurt, a deep and satisfying pain. And I haven't felt it in three years. I feel ashamed that I've lived too ordinary of a life for three years.
I'm ready to do it again. I knew it was coming, and I was ready for it, waiting for it, starting to yearn for it. My husband finished his language class and was waiting for his assignment. He was worried that he might get sent to Iraq even though he'd studied Farsi and wanted to go to Afghanistan.
So we never imagined the assignment he got: Rear D.
For civilian readers, the Rear Detachment is the one guy the unit leaves behind to man the phones and take care of the homefront. He's the liason between the deployed unit and the families. He works his butt off back at home to take care of unit affairs.
My husband is being left behind while his unit deploys.
One would think that this would be welcomed news for the Rear D family. If my husband had only been home 12 months since his deployment, I might enjoy this assignment a little too. But three years later, I can't believe this is what we'll be doing. I can't believe my husband doesn't get to do what he's longed to do since the day he came home -- go back and help some more -- and I can't believe I don't get to satisfy my unnatural craving for deployment feelings.
We're just so stunned that this is the hand we've been dealt.
Some guys have already spent enough time in Iraq to last them a lifetime. When it's all said and done, my husband will have been home for more than four years before he finally gets his chance to go again and do what he loves.
Despite our best efforts, we're watching history pass us by.
1
Oh man, that is lame. You can get a desk job anywhere--people are soldiers so they can SOLDIER. And yet, somebody has to do it...
I was considering looking into a training position, but it would be a 3-year gig--and I'd miss our next trip downrange. I'd considered that aspect, which is the only real downside to me, but it was my wife who actually brought it up, to my surprise. She knows how badly I want to go back.
Right now, it's hard watching a good chunk of my platoon jump ship to another BDE so they can go back again THIS year. It's not something civilians tend to understand....
Sig
2
Oh man!
I understand your feelings. Although I am dreading Gunner leaving, I am so proud of what he does, and nothing beats a good homecoming.
Move to Hood, they deploy fast and furious.
3
Wow, he has to be so frustrated. I know my husband would be. He is already itching to go to Afghanistan and he isn't even back from Iraq yet ...
Still, I hope this simply means you now have more time to reach that goal of parenthood. Maybe it's for a reason.
*hugs*
Posted by: Stephanie at March 10, 2008 06:12 PM (kzbE/)
4
'Despite out best efforts, we're watching history pass us by.'
My version of this?
'To utilize the time to show our best efforts, we've been chosen to make history by making babies that have a Mama and a Daddy... And given a fantastic chunk of time to do said baby-making....'
You are being led down a road. Let the opportunities rise to you without you ignoring that effort, too.... Your choices are being presented to you, and what you do with them will determine where you head.... What road...
I am smiling because, yes, he doesn't ever want to be in the rear with the gear. BUT, that gear could be YOU and a great opportunity to figure out what you need to do to reach your goal(s)....
Lightening Crashes by Live.... I don't know if you know this song, but it's emotionally moving and it makes me hopeful....
I think this rear gear is a great thing. Because, ultimately, what's a year? A lot but a little....
Times like this, I totally believe in God. Trust that this is where you need to be....
I'm very excited!!!!! :>
Posted by: Allison at March 10, 2008 08:32 PM (xElwl)
McCAIN
My husband encouraged me to watch the new McCain campaign video this morning. I hadn't watched it because, well, I already know I'm voting for him. But I did watch it, and I loved it. It was beautiful and inspiring. Ann Althouse dissects the commercial here.
Also, what is the deal about this McCain "flipping out" thing? Seriously, talking forcefully to a reporter is called losing your cool? These oversensitive people should have a conversation with my husband; just yesterday he said that a certain Army wife author should be "set on fire and pushed down the stairs." And that's a gentle insult coming from him. We were laughing that we wish McCain would flip out, really let someone have it. He said he wants a president who doesn't suffer fools.
We watched Annie Hall last night and kept pausing it and trying to put it in it's social context. My husband noted that it came out four years after McCain was released from Hanoi. While it's a decent enough and quirky movie, can you imagine seeing it after being tortured for five years? These are people's problems? This won Best Picture, a show about people who are unhappy dating each other? I don't know how you go back to being a normal person after being a POW. How long does it take before the little things in life start bugging you again? I wonder when you feel normal enough again to complain about the pseudo-intellectual talking loudly in line at the movies. When does the just-happy-to-be-alive feeling wear off?
2
FbL -- I have wanted to get my husband and Chuck Z in a room together for years
I think it'd be a riot.
Posted by: Sarah at March 08, 2008 05:52 AM (TWet1)
3
I wish that, along with his heroic time as a POW, that he and Cindy's adoption of a orphan in Bangladesh would also be publicized. I think these are pretty good testaments to his character.
Posted by: Nicole at March 08, 2008 03:25 PM (YHVU/)
FEELING LONELY
Angie posted a link about large families (4+ kids). I knew I shouldn't read it, I just knew it. But I went anyway. Ouch, does it hurt to read comment after comment from people who had all of these accidental kids. Pregnant while on birth control, pregnant after having tubes tied (!), etc. It's so hard to hear about all these surprises when we'd give anything to get the one mega-planned-for baby we've been working on for 13 months.
I have begun to feel discouraged again. It's been three months since the miscarriage and, despite the fact that friends and family all assured me I'd be pregnant again by now, no such luck. And I'm starting to wish that I just had someone to go through this with me. I know several people who had trouble getting pregnant, but, happily for them, they have all gone on to start families. They completely understand what I'm going through, but since they're all past that stage of their lives, it's not the same thing; they know that life eventually works out for them, but I don't have that guarantee yet. So while it's reassuring to me that everyone has gone on to have a baby, either by adoption or IVF, I don't know anyone in the same situation as I am right now: trying unsuccessfully to have her first child. Do any of you readers know of someone currently going through this stage of her life? I'd really like to find a comrade in this struggle.
Because it's rough knowing that people who got pregnant five months after I started trying are getting ready to give birth...
1
I wish so much I could gift this curse of fertility to you. You're right, it just doesn't seem fair. Can't tell you how often I've thought of this very subject. I think I can hook you up with some in your same situation. Gimme a couple of days.
I have to tell you I gave a mid-wife a good laugh today. I asked at my appointment if I could get my tubes tied even if my husband had a vasectomy. She told me to just trust the vasectomy. I laughed and said no way! Not with our luck. I want to make sure I'm not having anymore babies!!!
I hope your smiling a little, my friend
I'm sending you one of my great big "Fertile Myrtle" hugs right now.
Posted by: Angie at March 07, 2008 02:49 PM (BJEkk)
2
The last time you posted about this, it made me think of my good college friend who was recovering from her third miscarriage. I think, at that point, that she and her husband had been trying to achieve (and sustain) a pregnancy for about 14 months. I just found out yesterday that she's 16 weeks pregnant and had ultrasound pictures to show. She waited to announce this one because she lost her first pregnancy at 14 weeks. Although I'm not at the point of being ready for motherhood, she sure gives me lots of hope!
Posted by: Nicole at March 07, 2008 02:54 PM (YHVU/)
3
Dammit. I'd give you my (theoretically) fertile self if I could.
*hugs*
4
Some of our dearest friends at church have been trying to have another child since I was in Afghanistan. I missed meeting them the first Sunday I was back because she had just miscarried.
She's now watched no less than 8 people in the church--including people who didn't want one, and a teenager, and so forth--go on to have babies in the last year and a half (ours was born a week and a half ago), and she has said before that it's really hard not to be a little bitter about it. Every time I see her, my own (considerable) joy is tempered quite a bit because she is such a wonderful mother to her 3-year-old daughter and it's a really big deal to them.
I can't say anything that hasn't been said. We've been married for 7 and a half years, but only started trying right before I deployed, and even so it took 6 or 7 months after I got back before we "caught." The worst part of the deployment for me was when she miscarried just a month after I mobilized to go over; I was stuck in TX, unable to help or even just hold her hand...
Sig
5
All I can say is GOOD LUCK. I can't imagine how you are feeling, I'm way older than worrying about becoming, or not becoming, pregnant. I know the blessings of motherhood and family and I wish it for you.
Today I am in San Antonio celebrating with my children and grandchildren the graduation of one of my grandsons from basic training at Lackland AFB. we are so proud and happy for him. It took him a while to decide on a path in life. His was an honor flight and a great incentive to do even better.
Posted by: Ruth H at March 08, 2008 08:57 AM (caBZ5)
Posted by: Allison at March 08, 2008 10:36 AM (xElwl)
7
I remember how absolutely alone I felt when I was going through infertility issues. (it took 5 years to have our first!). It seemed as if everyone was pregnant around me.
I wish I knew someone at the same stage now, I wish I had known someone at the same stage I was 10 years ago... you're right, it would have helped.
I hope you can find a comrade in this struggle.
Posted by: TripleE at March 08, 2008 03:06 PM (OWlhq)
THEY'VE HATED US FOR MORE THAN FIVE YEARS
Betsy Newmark quotes Michael Gerson today about anti-Americanism and how it's not all Bush's fault. It certainly is not. I lived in France in 1998-99, and lots of people hated Americans; French, Swiss, Croatian, Norwegian, Canadian, Swedish, and Russian students hated us alike. The Croatian student hated us because of Bill Clinton, because his family was in danger during the air strikes in 1999. And that wasn't unilateral cowboy tactics; that was NATO. I also lived in Sweden in the summer of 2001, before 9/11. People hated Americans, namely for Kyoto that summer. I blogged about the riots in Goteborg during the EU summit, in which protesters carried paper mache Bush puppets and chanted "Go home, Bush." This was before 9/11, before Iraq, before any of these lame excuses that we hear these days about why Europe hates us. They just do. They have for a very long time. Iraq was just the frosting on the cake.
HE IS CALLING ME DUDE
My husband found this perfect video. This Cake song came out in 2001, but I swear it looks like it could've been written for the Obama movement.
POPPING IN
I've been busy hanging out with Heather and trying to distract her in the last few days before her husband returns, so I haven't been on the computer much.
1
Ooh! Ooh! Make one of these!
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/22/knit-gasmask-hat.html
Posted by: deskmerc at March 02, 2008 05:41 AM (Ho1gG)
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Lovely scarf! I'm thinking about taking up knitting, something nice and quiet to do when the kids are asleep that would require me to put down the laptop... any good suggestions for a newbie? Books to look at or something simple?
3
Knitting is a wonderful hobby!! It's kinda rough to learn from a book, but it certainly can be done. If you're a feisty lady, you might like the book Stitch n Bitch
My local library even carries it if you don't want to buy it. But it has lots of tips and a fun writing style. But really, any knitting book will do.
But a book alone won't cut it; I cannot say how highly I recommend the website www.knittinghelp.com She has free videos for all sorts of techniques, beginner to advanced. If you sit with the book and the videos, I think you'd be able to figure it out.
But you might be able to find a class locally for a decent price. My classes at Michaels were $15 for a two-hour session, in which you can learn all the basics. You might find something similar at a yarn store near you.
Good luck, and let me know if you take up knitting!
Posted by: Sarah at March 02, 2008 03:57 PM (TWet1)
4
lea - warning - knitting is highly addictive. Sarah's projects got me started, and now I JUST CAN'T STOP. I've made socks for my entire immediate family, a scarf for the husband (he wants one of those DNA scarves now), a doll sweater, two cabled purses, and some various practice things.
I might need a 12 step program.
Posted by: airforcewife at March 03, 2008 04:21 AM (mIbWn)
FLYING PIG MOMENT
My apologies to LGF for stealing his flying pig, but dang...
Angelina Jolie wrote approvingly about the progress in Iraq:
Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq -- and the potential consequences for our national security -- are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?
...
As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.
Frank J wrote a funny post the other day about Obama called "My Solution to Iraq Is to Never Have Gone There." It was funny because it felt all too true; many people talk about fixing Iraq in the past tense, as if "we shouldn't be there in the first place" is an actual solution. So -- and I can't believe I'm typing this -- kudos to Angelina Jolie for dealing with the actual situation as it stands today and not wishing for some utopian non-invasion that doesn't exist. And kudos to her for reporting what she saw on the ground, despite the fact that (I'm guessing) it doesn't jibe with her preconceptions.
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There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living. --The Count of Monte Cristo--
While our troops go out to defend our country, it is incumbent upon us to make the country worth defending. --Deskmerc--
Contrary to what you've just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, WWII, and the Star Wars Trilogy. --Bart Simpson--
If you want to be a peacemaker, you've gotta learn to kick ass. --Sheriff of East Houston, Superman II--
Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind. --Jed Babbin--
Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. --President John F. Kennedy--
War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. --General Patton--
We've gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over. --Full Metal Jacket--
Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed. --Dick Cheney--
The Flag has to come first if freedom is to survive. --Col Steven Arrington--
The purpose of diplomacy isn't to make us feel good about Eurocentric diplomatic skills, and having countries from the axis of chocolate tie our shoelaces together does nothing to advance our infantry. --Sir George--
I just don't care about the criticism I receive every day, because I know the cause I defend is right. --Oriol--
It's days like this when we're reminded that freedom isn't free. --Chaplain Jacob--
Bumper stickers aren't going to accomplish some of the missions this country is going to face. --David Smith--
The success of multilateralism is measured not merely by following a process, but by achieving results. --President Bush--
Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.
--John Galt--
First, go buy a six pack and swig it all down. Then, watch Ace Ventura. And after that, buy a Hard Rock Cafe shirt and come talk to me. You really need to lighten up, man.
--Sminklemeyer--
You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting --General Curtis Lemay--
If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -- we must fight! --Patrick Henry--
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American. --President George W. Bush--
are usually just cheerleading sessions, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing but a soothing reduction in blood pressure brought about by the narcotic high of being agreed with. --Bill Whittle
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill--
We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other. --General George Marshall--
We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way.
--Buzz Aldrin--
America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.
--Dinesh D'Souza--
Recent anti-Israel protests remind us again of our era's peculiar alliance: the most violent, intolerant, militantly religious movement in modern times has the peace movement on its side. --James Lileks--
As a wise man once said: we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Unless the price is too high, the burden too great, the hardship too hard, the friend acts disproportionately, and the foe fights back. In which case, we need a timetable.
--James Lileks--
I am not willing to kill a man so that he will agree with my faith, but I am prepared to kill a man so that he cannot force my compatriots to submit to his.
--Froggy--
You can say what you want about President Bush; but the truth is that he can take a punch. The man has taken a swift kick in the crotch for breakfast every day for 6 years and he keeps getting up with a smile in his heart and a sense of swift determination to see the job through to the best of his abilties.
--Varifrank--
In a perfect world, We'd live in peace and love and harmony with each oither and the world, but then, in a perfect world, Yoko would have taken the bullet.
--SarahBellum--
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. --Ronald Reagan--
America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large. --E.M. Forster--
Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse. --Mark Twain--
The Enlightenment was followed by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, which touched every European state, sparked vicious guerrilla conflicts across the Continent and killed millions. Then, things really turned ugly after the invention of soccer. --Iowahawk--
Every time I meet an Iraqi Army Soldier or Policeman that I haven't met before, I shake his hand and thank him for his service. Many times I am thanked for being here and helping his country. I always tell them that free people help each other and that those that truly value freedom help those seeking it no matter the cost. --Jack Army--
Right, left - the terms are useless nowadays anyway. There are statists, and there are individualists. There are pessimists, and optimists. There are people who look backwards and trust in the West, and those who look forward and trust in The World. Those are the continuums that seem to matter the most right now. --Lileks--
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
--Winston Churchill--
A man or a nation is not placed upon this earth to do merely what is pleasant and what is profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is both unpleasant and unprofitable, but if it is obviously right it is mere shirking not to undertake it. --Arthur Conan Doyle--
A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself. --John Stuart Mill--
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." --Dave Grossman--
At heart I’m a cowboy; my attitude is if they’re not going to stand up and fight for what they believe in then they can go pound sand. --Bill Whittle--
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. --Alexander Tyler--
By that time a village half-wit could see what generations of professors had pretended not to notice. --Atlas Shrugged--
I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and everything seemed so shitty. And he'd say, "That's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too." --Alabama Worley--
So Bush is history, and we have a new president who promises to heal the planet, and yet the jihadists don’t seem to have got the Obama message that there are no enemies, just friends we haven’t yet held talks without preconditions with.
--Mark Steyn--
"I had started alone in this journey called life, people started
gathering up on the way, and the caravan got bigger everyday." --Urdu couplet
The book and the sword are the two things that control the world. We either gonna control them through knowledge and influence their minds, or we gonna bring the sword and take their heads off. --RZA--
It's a daily game of public Frogger, hopping frantically to avoid being crushed under the weight of your own narcissism, banality, and plain old stupidity. --Mary Katharine Ham--
There are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms
of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. --James Madison--
It is in the heat of emotion that good people must remember to stand on principle. --Larry Elder--
Please show this to the president and ask him to remember the wishes of the forgotten man, that is, the one who dared to vote against him. We expect to be tramped on but we do wish the stepping would be a little less hard. --from a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt--
The world economy depends every day on some engineer, farmer, architect, radiator shop owner, truck driver or plumber getting up at 5AM, going to work, toiling hard, and producing real wealth so that an array of bureaucrats, regulators, and redistributors can manage the proper allotment of much of the natural largess produced. --VDH--
Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves. --Marcelene Cox--
I think it'd be a riot.
