I just found this Army wife's blog post and it made my fingers itch to write:

I was told the other day that Hubble's ultimate mission is to come home to me (actually the choice of words was "come home to his mother" but we're not going there today). I had to bite my tongue. That is not the ultimate mission. It is to succeed, to better, to save, to secure. I know he can do all that. After all, I married him.

He did not enter the service to fulfill the mission of coming home to me. We both well know that there is a chance he may make the ultimate sacrifice. That is something we've come to terms with. There IS a war and there ARE people depending on him.

My husband is freaking out that when it comes time to get his Civil Affairs assignment, he'll get South America or something. We have no idea if this is even something to worry about, but I've seen the Army do dumber things. (I met a soldier on our post in Germany who was an Algerian-born fluent Arabic speaker...and he was on Rear D while the rest of the post was deployed to Iraq. The Army is anything but logical sometimes, but I digress.) My husband wants desperately to be put to good use to support the Global War on Terrorism because, like kd's husband, his mission is "to succeed, to better, to save, to secure."

The meaning of life is not Avoid Death. The meaning of life is to use your life for meaning.

Not everyone in the United States sees meaning in what we're doing in Iraq. I attribute this to many things. AWTM remarked that "people are much too busy watching American Idol/Dancing with the Stars and Deal or No Deal to bother researching world Events." I also fault the Bush administration for not helping Americans see what's really going on. But some people, like my husband, want to do what they think is right, no matter how many people the polls say are backing them.

As den Beste put it,

Honor comes from inside. An honorable man is true to himself and his own ideals, and he lives and acts according to those ideals no matter what anyone else says. It doesn't matter if that makes him respected or despised, for honor is not based on peer opinion.

And an honorable man will, if necessary, die for honor, die for what's right. There are issues worth dying for, and issues worth killing for. These things are not done lightly, but when they must be done an honorable man does not shy from his duty, even if he has to face it alone. It is more important what you stand for than who you stand with.

Honor is not and cannot be "multilateral". When you stand up for what's right, you may stand with many others, but each of those others stands there because of his honor. Each makes that decision for himself, and every one decides unilaterally.

If you compromise your honor in the name of "unity", or of "harmony" (or "alliance", or "multilateralism"), then you have lost your honor and have sold it cheaply. But if you are willing to do that, you never really had any honor to begin with.

I admire kd's husband's honor and sense of duty despite the naysayers around him. And I admire my husband for taking a job that will take him closer to the fight.

And I pray they don't give him South America. We'd have another ukulele incident for certain.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:46 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Matt Sanchez has written a great article about the anti-military attitude he's encountered at Columbia. My favorite part:

For the academics, joining the Corps over attending an Ivy League school was an obvious sign of desperation.

Were we desperate? Our platoon "heavy hat," Staff Sgt. Forde, never once mentioned he was named the best tanker in the Corps — two years in a row. But my professors at Columbia always mention the books they and their colleagues have written and often assign those books, as graded papers, so we all have to mention them, too. Who is desperate?

(Found via SandGram)

Posted by: Sarah at 03:39 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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If I could sum up how the Army has given my life more meaning than I ever thought possible when I agreed to marry that ol' cadet, this is what I'd say: Perspective.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:15 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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This has been the hardest blog secret to keep ever. I was dying for her to post something about it so I could put up a big blog hooray. But apparently telling people in her Real Life was important for some reason, like they couldn't just read it on the internet like the rest of us (wink). CaliValleyGirl-friend is now CaliValleyFiancée

Posted by: Sarah at 09:56 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Remember this summer when our travel voucher got all messed up and the Army paid us about $600 too much? That overpayment finally got found and corrected in November. But they did it again this time! And WAY more than $600. My husband just sighed and said, "More interest to be made." OK, Army, we'll keep your two grand for you for a while.

Ah, Finance. It's good to be away from you.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:01 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 When we first arrived in Germany (and when I knew little to nothing about how to read and correctly interpret an LES), I discovered by accident that we were being paid about $700 per month too much. (luckily I had a good idea of what a 2LT gets paid per month!) Without knowing that these things always get resolved eventually, I took my power of attorney and headed over to the finance office to make them aware of the situation...the look on the guy's face was too funny. It was the "you're actually reporting this?" look. The next month they promptly took back all of the overpayment...which introduced me to the "if you are underpaid, we'll take our time re-paying you but if you are overpaid, we'll take it all back at one" policy.

Posted by: Nicole at January 10, 2007 06:16 AM (8QLUb)

2 sorry...meant to write "once"

Posted by: Nicole at January 10, 2007 06:17 AM (8QLUb)

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I just watched Shootout: Return to Fallujah on the History Channel. This episode chronicled one soldier I know -- CPT Sean Sims -- and many soldiers I was amazed I had never heard of.

I've read so many stories of heroism online, but there's something completely different about reading it and hearing it from the soldiers themselves. I love the way soldiers can talk about grenades going off and appear more calm than I was last night when a Coke fell out of the fridge and sprayed in circles around the kitchen. There's something just so powerful about hearing that when a guy who was dragging his wounded buddy to safety got shot in the shoulder, he simply switched his grip to the other hand and continued to care for his friend. There's something about seeing these men talk about each other with awe, and sometimes a few quivers in the voice, that doesn't come across online.

There's something humbling about watching a single man sustain a firefight alone that makes me so damned proud to know that I even lived in the same town as him once.

God, I love these men.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I have been completely spoiled for the past four and a half years.

The entire time my husband has been in the Army, we've lived extremely close to his work. Most places have been walking distance; the last one was at least biking distance. So every day he's been in the Army, he's made three trips into work: PT, pre-lunch, and post-lunch. We've eaten breakfast and lunch together most of our married life.

Today he went to work for the first day before PT and won't be back until close of business.

I keep telling myself that normal husbands and daddies don't get to come home for lunch. My dad never did. I also keep telling myself that now that he won't break up my day, I will have more uninterrupted time for big sewing projects. But I'm still not taking this been-gone-for-11-hours thing well.

Neither is the dog.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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