I just have to say that our military community is so wonderful.

Today LTG Sanchez came to talk to us. He and other top dogs in USAREUR spoke about reintegration issues and gave quality information on the return of 1ID. When LTG Sanchez opened up the floor for questions, he even cracked a joke: "Heck, I'll even answer Abu Ghraib questions if you have them." I giggled loudly.

I had a question about the timeline for my husband switching units after the deployment, since he will make the move from armor to finance. LTG Sanchez gave me a good answer, but immediately after the briefing, several people came to follow up on my concerns. The rear detachment lieutenant colonel immediately started asking me how he could help, taking notes on a small pad of paper. The finance major and captain approached me, having recognized my last name and realizing I was talking about their lieutenant. The armor rear detachment commander also approached and made sure that I got the information I needed, and he quipped to the finance major that our armor unit isn't willing to lose a top LT, which was kind. It was amazing. So many people from so high up the chain of command were making sure that I was taken care of.

And the answers I got were very encouraging. I can't wait for my husband to get home from his current mission so I can put his/our worries to rest. I can't speak higher of the treatment I just received. Our Rear D exemplifies "no mission too difficult, no sacrifice too great." They're high speed.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:51 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The Questing Cat can see the big picture. He measures his role in Iraq not in individual IEDs but in terms of division-sized cycles. I wish him the best as he returns home.

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CaliValleyGirl's boyfriend is deploying soon, and she voices many of the issues that I remember from this time last year. I must say that there is one clause that I am really starting to hate, one that I have been hearing more and more often: "When my husband was in Iraq the first time..."

Posted by: Sarah at 10:23 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I got excited a few months ago when they raised our Cost Of Living Allowance, but now today I am feeling alarmed:

As the dollar drops against foreign currency, it makes the cost of basing U.S. military personnel in Europe and Asia all the more expensive. For example, every time the euro rises one euro cent in value against the dollar, the dollar increase in salary and benefits for local-national employees at the Navy Exchanges is $187,000 adjusted annually, according to Lt. Cmdr. Lisa Braun, spokeswoman for Navy Region Europe in Naples, Italy.

Get us out of here! Send us all back home so we can spend our dollars in Kansas and Texas instead of on paying Germans to sit on their rumps and be rude to us in the housing office. Let me go home so I can pump my money into Quizno's and Hobby Lobby instead of spending it here. Let our single soldiers drop hundreds of dollars in American clubs and bars instead of being banned from Club New York in Nuremburg because Club New freakin' York doesn't like Americans. Let me take my car in to the Nissan dealer at home so I can stop getting hosed here because our warranty is no good in Europe. Let me tip an American waiter for bringing me my third free refill of Dr. Pepper instead of the German who charged me extra for ketchup.

Wanna solve issues of COLA and ridiculous pay/benefits for local nationals?
Send. Us. Home.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:42 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Red 6 got the Silver Star. And his smile just lights up my heart.

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ABC wanted to know if there were any military funerals that they could contrast to their coverage of the inauguration. I send a hundred mental middle fingers their way, for today I attended the memorial service for PFC Gunnar Becker.

The soldiers of Becker's company had their own service:

As they approached the memorial to render a final salute, many of his comrades felt compelled to leave a memento. While many leaders left unit coins, the popping of stitches was heard as nametapes and patches were torn from uniforms throughout the chapel, and left on the memorial alongside a toy tank, paper flowers, packs of Camel cigarettes and other personal items.

Today we who stand and wait had ours.

PFC Becker seems like an upstanding guy. He gave away his R&R slot to another soldier whose grandfather was ill. He joined in Army in August 2003, at which point he would have known he'd be heading to a long deployment in the Middle East. He joined anyway. His platoon sergeant said that when he asked Becker why he joined the Army, instead of answering "for the college money" like most do, he said, "I came in to make a difference."

And he did make a difference. One of his friends, in DCUs and crutches, went to the podium and choked back sobs as he spoke of his friend. We all wept. My heart ached as they fired the volleys. PFC Becker will be buried on Saturday at 1530 in South Dakota, on his 20th birthday.

Screw you, ABC, for wanting to politicize our pain.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:25 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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Yesterday when I did a search on PFC Gunnar Becker, all I could find was a Wall of Fame entry at his high school. Which he graduated from, incidentally, in 2003. Today there is more information about the young man our battalion lost this week.

Lost soldier lit up their lives, friends say
SD soldier killed in Iraq (his photo: he looks like a little kid...he would've been 20 next week)

His death was an accident, a stupid, infuriating accident. If an insurgent had killed him, I could at least have someone to hate. I feel angry about PFC Becker's death, but there's nowhere to focus my laser beam.

Even as young soldier back in 2003, Becker realized the risk.

He said, "I guess if it costs a couple of people's lives to keep freedom it's probably worth it. That's just the way I am guess."

We'll make sure it was worth it, Gunnar.

(My thoughts on PFC Becker's memorial service here.)

Posted by: Sarah at 03:39 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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There are some wives here who are already getting ready for our husbands' return. Others are convinced that, like 1AD before us, our soldiers will be extended past their 13 month target. We have a bad precedent: many in 1AD were already home when they got turned back to Iraq. Even having our soldiers step off the plane isn't a guarantee that they're home, so no one quite knows when to breathe the sigh of relief. And the fact that the elections are supposed to take place a mere two weeks before our transfer of authority is making everyone a little crazy.

What I've been wondering lately is what exactly would have to happen to make the situation bad enough that 1ID would have to stay. Many people have been saying that "if the elections go badly", but how badly would they have to go? How intense the fighting, how widespread the chaos, how dangerous the situation? What would it take to make them hold on to the division?

I'm not getting my hopes oriented in either direction. Before 1ID left, I told myself that I would be happy as long as my husband came home before Tax Day. I still have to keep that target in mind.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:37 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Today marks the eleventh month of our deployment. Our battalion just lost its first soldier.

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I've never understood the relationship between the Army and smoking. I understand that smoking can alleviate stress, which I suppose is why many people start while they're deployed. But I don't understand how an organization that prides itself on physical fitness can be so full of smokers. But then again, I've never smoked; perhaps I overestimate the effects. Thoughts?

(prompted by this article, only tangentially related)

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I have to chuckle at the fact that I learned about a new milblogger via an Iraqi blog. Omar pointed out In Iraq for 365, where I found a great post called "From the smells to toilets to flirting, I miss America".

And for the anti-war types who think Iraq was all kite-flying before we got there, check out this sentence:

LoganÂ’s story is both compelling and sad. His uncle was killed by members of Saddam HusseinÂ’s regime for speaking Turkish in Baghdad.

Killed for speaking a foreign language. Remind me again why we shouldn't have invaded Iraq?

Posted by: Sarah at 10:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I have always maintained that I am lucky to be a modern military wife and that the struggles we face are nothing compared to those who have gone before us. In times of fear, I always count my blessings that my husband fights in Iraq instead of on Normandy Beach. I perhaps could have endured WWII though; tonight, after watching Glory, my benchmark is set much higher.

I'm brave, but could I have sent my husband to fight in the Civil War? Could I have endured each excruciating moment, knowing that he was lining up in perfect rows in plain sight of the enemy, drummers and colors nearby? Could I have born the agony of imagining him fighting with a bayonet? I'd like to think that I could have carried that weight, knowing that the cause soldiers fought for then was the same cause we fight for today. But it's hard to say; in an age where supposedly 77% of HMMWVs are up-armored and 100% of men wear armor plates, how can we even fathom rows of men trying to reload their muskets faster than the other guy?

I would hope that I could be as strong as women past. Edith Roosevelt hung a photo of her dead son on her mantel to defy the Germans who sent it to her. I picture her when times get difficult. I'm certain that Civil War women deserve far more respect and admiration than I can guess.

Military wife-ing has gotten progressively easier, no matter what anyone says. Watch Glory and imagine your husband fighting for freedom back then if you don't believe me.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:20 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 While I do not doubt they suffered much, I feel the wives of today's army have it much, much worse. This is not an argument one wishes to elaborate upon, but for me you have it far worse. That being said, you've nothing to worry about anyway

Posted by: Sean at January 04, 2005 06:39 PM (37FD7)

2 the wife and families endure more hardship than us, soldiers. we love our families; they didn't sign up for the army we did. great blog.

Posted by: Sminklemeyer at January 04, 2005 11:46 PM (m+gEn)

3 I think we have it better than the wives of soldiers serving in every war before OEF/OIF. Today's wives have information thrown at them from every direction. (Radio, TV, Internet, email, snail mail, phones, etc.) Civil/WWI/WWII war wives had rumors and imagination to deal with, just as current wives does. However, today's wives can combat rumor and imagination with all of the other media input. Before the rumors of a soldiers death or injury can begin to circulate units and FRG's are initiating phone rosters to head off the rumors. As recently as the Vietnam War, spouses were forced to move out of quarters (housing) when their spouses deployed. Imagine having to move out of quarters these days with each deployment. Oh what fun we would have had!

Posted by: Vonn at January 05, 2005 10:29 AM (FmIVz)

4 With modern communication like telephones, e-mail, blogs, and the like, you can at least periodically be in contact with your husband. Imagine just getting letters once a week or month, and not hearing their voice for years on end. Or imagine in times of sailing ships where you would hear virtually nothing of your husband for 2 or 3 years!!

Posted by: Tom at January 05, 2005 11:29 AM (D7UYv)

5 There is a major difference in the current families left behind. In the past units were community based. This concept includes Soldiers mobilized from one post. There was a community tie and affiliation with the deployed as well as an ingrained support for the families left behind. Today with so many reserve component forces being mobilized spouses left behind are often living in communities where they are the only household going through the experience. This can lead to stress put on what were previous friendships. Spouses hear comments like, "How are you going to get by with him gone for a year?", "I couldn't do that, I love my family too much." such comments stir ire in spouses. Thoughts of retorts flare "I don't know, perhaps you could give me a hand with my 4 kids while I mow the lawn/shovel snow/etc" or “Yeah, I know what you mean, I guess my husband doesn't love us as much as you love your family as demonstrated by your lack of commitment." It never ceases to amaze me how many people support the troops but will not invite or socialize with the spouses who need social interaction the most when the other adult in the household is gone for months and often years at a time. Support the troops yes, but lend a hand and actually help the wives left behind.

Posted by: cfborman at January 29, 2005 04:08 PM (UOr9J)

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I've been emailing with a reader lately, and I hope she doesn't mind if I steal her words about love for our soldiers:

Sometimes I feel like a firehose with a knot in it. I have to be careful where I point it 'cause if the knot ever gets untied, I might end up drowning somebody in admiration, gratitude and affection.

That's how I felt when I read this article: They just want to rejoin their friends

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1 No problem. I'm honored you quoted me. Just keep it anonymous. I think it's great how the military has been finding ways to make use of the dedication, experience and knowledge of injured servicemembers. More than just the benefits to the military, I think it probably helps the individual with psychological recovery and adjustment. The article reminds me of a Marine NCO I've been corresponding with. He's spent the last 4 months suffering daily headaches due to an IED blast. He was treated for other injuries in-country and returned to his unit, but he won't tell anybody about the headaches. He wrote, "There's no way they're taking me away from my men. I'll tell them how I really feel when I get back home." Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have affected his ability to do his job because he and his men have been very busy and successful in a very "hot" part of the country.

Posted by: anonymous at January 02, 2005 10:25 AM (oDr7Q)

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Bunker wrote about the notion that the military is "society's trash heap", and I only have one thing to add. Having taught four sections of college English, I can say that the soldiers in my classes are just like students in any other classes. There are those who work hard, those who make excuses, and those who simply don't show up. I have had numerous non-native speakers who have taken my class and excelled because they worked hard to improve the English that they barely had learned by basic training. I have had students whose foundations have really impressed me; they must have worked hard in high school. And I've also had students who don't want to think for themselves and call me every time a paper is due to ask me what they should write. I believe that's the same cross section as I had when I taught at University of Illinois, and I imagine it's the same for any class anywhere.

The one difference I see is when my students write their narrative paper on one incident in their lives that has made them who they are today. That's when things start to get serious. By and large, my students have overcome extreme obstacles to get to this point in their lives, far more so than my college friends or I have. They've survived gang shootings, jail sentences, IEDs, domestic abuse, immigration without being able to speak English, combat deaths of their friends, and extreme poverty to get to where they are today. Most are grateful to have been given the opportunity to be in college, and they take nothing for granted. They've worked hard to get where they are, far harder than most of my peers in college.

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It's common knowledge around here that I completely don't trust polls. Even ones that say things I want to hear. I certainly put no stock whatsoever in polls that say there's a 51-49% split, but I'm tempted to at least check out polls that report 60, 66, or 87% findings. I'll check them out, but they're still worth a grain of salt, because I think that people say what they think others want to hear and they consistently choose "fair" or "agree" as the default (I do this all the time when I have no strong feelings either way). So with skepticism in mind, I checked out the Military Times Poll (via Power Line).

Sixty-three percent of respondents approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, and 60 percent remain convinced it is a war worth fighting. And support for the war is even greater among those who have served longest in the combat zone: Two-thirds of combat vets say the war is worth fighting.

The soldier I spent Christmas with -- who just re-enlisted -- said that when he first deployed, he thought going to Iraq was a pretty dumb idea. After being there, he says he now sees why it is important.

In addition, despite the pressures of a wartime military, 87 percent said theyÂ’re satisfied with their jobs and, given the choice today, only 25 percent said they would leave the service.

The only soldier I know who might get out wants to do so because he's like an athlete who quits after Olympic gold: after being in Fallujah, there's nothing that could keep him satisfied. I'll give you one guess which lovable thrillseeker I'm talking about.

I know this poll has received arched eyebrows because it was mostly answered by career military, but they are the people I am most concerned about. To be honest, the views of the guy who only joined for the college benefits don't matter to me nearly as much as the ones who plan to stick around and see this fight through. I care about the 58% of those who said they're re-enlisting/extending because of "patriotism". They're the ones who are going to make sure the war in Iraq is a success.

(The last time I wrote about a poll, vitriolic nutjobs came out of the woodwork to defend the poll's findings and call me hateful names because I said that a poll with 1230 respondents and a margin of error +/- 3% might not be accurate of the population. (Which I said because the questions were ridiculously loaded, and as it turns out, the poll skewed heavily Democrat.) Let's see if those same people -- those who liked the results of that poll -- come back to tell me that I should indeed listen to the results of this poll with 1,423 respondents, +/- 2.6%. I won't hold my breath.)

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I bet you can all guess what happened when a blogger tried to buy toy guns for his sons for Christmas. Think he could find any?

My friend and I were laughing the other day while I was looking at her refrigerator. She has several photos on display of her husband in Iraq, and she also has some drawings magneted up there -- I guess her husband mails home pictures he drew and then her two sons color them in. What I laughingly pointed out was how odd it would look in a non-military family to have a fridge covered in photos of Dad with his M16 and colored drawings of a soldier manning a 50cal in a HMMWV or a jet dropping bombs on buildings. But to us, those kinds of things are completely normal. My friend turned to her four year old son and asked him, "What's Daddy's job?" He gleefully replied, "Soldier!" They decided it was the coolest job a Daddy could have.

I don't have any kids to scar, but my fridge still bears my husband's zero target from the day he shot expert. I think it's awful cute.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:40 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Hi and Merry Christmas! I found your site via an email 2Slick sent me. I'm glad he did - love your site! I hope your holiday season is a joyous one! I also hope your loved one comes home safe and soon. Take care!

Posted by: SgtMgr at December 27, 2004 04:15 AM (vTHO8)

2 Sarah - the refrigerator pictures seem normal to me as I have pictures of the soldiers we sponsor on our refrigerator mixed in with pictures of the kids, etc.

Posted by: Kathleen A at December 27, 2004 07:28 AM (vnAYT)

3 When we were stationed at Spangdahlem, Germany, and my oldest son was in kindergarten, he used to draw amazingly intricate battle drawings using stick figures no more than a quarter of an inch tall covering a full 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper. There would be troops in the field shooting at other armies, tanks firing, jets bombing, ships offshore shelling the coasts, and on and on. His teacher was concerned about the violence in them (flame throwers, stick figures blown up flying thru the air, machine guns cutting other stick figures in half, etc.) We asked him about it, and he pointed to one of his most recent drawings and said, "Here is daddy's jet dropping bombs on the bad people. It's just the bad people getting blown up." He had a good grip on what was important, so we never gave him a hard time about it. Grew up to be a great kid.

Posted by: Bugz at December 27, 2004 03:34 PM (uKuUC)

4 Keep that bzo sheet. I've always had trouble on the bzo exercises.

Posted by: James Sloan at December 28, 2004 12:38 AM (bCVhV)

5 My husband was a very brilliant child; born in 1935 he was very aware of WWII. I still have the pictures of war he drew, his mother saved all his "works" and they are of planes dropping bombs, machine guns on the wings firing away, big blasts showing on the ground, etc. I also have a photo or two that he devised of planes crashing and burning. Of course, they were not American, they were Japanese. His Dad was in the Pacific, fixing planes in Hawaii. My own sons, born in 1959 and 1961 drew pictures of war, but more of space ships and rockets. Little boys are like that.

Posted by: Ruth H at December 28, 2004 02:38 PM (yZgeX)

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1 Blog...

10 Veterans...

and millions of uninformed Civilians.

This could get ugly.

The battle begins January 1, 2005

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The 1ID website has got the only holiday video you'll see that contains both toy distribution and explosions. Check it out.

I am leaving to take two friends to the airport, so I'll be out of blogging range for two days. More when I return.

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Until Amritas put me on the spot, I didn't know the full details of Charles Jenkins' desertion. (Remember he's the guy who was in North Korea for almost forty years and just turned himself in.) When I first heard the gist of the story, I thought he was despicable, but now I believe he's paid the price for his choice.

Jenkins' unit, he had learned, was scheduled to ship out soon to the live war in Vietnam, a prospect that terrified him. "I did not want to be responsible for the lives of other soldiers under me," he said during his court-martial trial last month. So Jenkins looked for a way out. He could confess his cowardice to superiors and accept the consequences or attempt somehow to flee. He chose the latter option.

He should have chosen the former. When you sign up for the military, you'd better be prepared for the worst assignment possible in exchange for that precious GI Bill. You don't get to pick and choose with the military -- as Paredes and Hinzman believe they can -- so if you break that contract you signed, you go to jail. You don't try to flee. That said, Jenkins paid dearly for his error in judgement, working as a slave to the North Korean government for 40 years, and turned himself in willingly at the first chance he could find.

He would plead guilty only to desertion and aiding the enemy (for the time he spent teaching English). In exchange, his penalty would be a maximum 30 days' confinement, a demotion to private, forfeiture of all pay and benefits and a dishonorable discharge. Military-law experts assume Jenkins won this relatively lenient treatment in exchange for providing intelligence about North Korean spy programs. Neither Jenkins nor the U.S. government will comment on any such discussions.

Jenkins has paid his debt to the military and to society, and he has likely suffered far more than if he'd stayed in the Army a few more years. His slate is clean in my book. Hinzman, on the other hand, has far more 'splainin' to do.

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Last week, Annika -- a cool blogger whose themes include poetry and ripping on Britney Spears -- interviewed me via instant messenger. She just tidied up the conversation and posted it on her blog. I think I sound like a huge tool, but I bet that's pretty representative of my real personality: I probably sound like that to everyone. Anyway, if you're interested in hearing me yabber for an hour, check out Chicks Dig Tanks over at Annika's.

Annika and I touched briefly on Pat Tillman, a segment I would like to expand. I seriously didn't hear about the friendly fire until last week. I think the phrase "friendly fire" is is one of the worst things I can think of. I'd rather pretend it doesn't exist, but Tillman's death forced me to imagine the possibility.

2Slick wrote a long and detailed post on the anger the Tillman family feels, the "Army cover-up", and his thoughts on the matter. If you're interested at all in the subject, I highly recommend reading it. I think 2Slick summed up the crux of the controversy, at least for me:

There's a reason why the men involved refused to talk about the incident with the WaPo reporter. It makes them sick. Every single day. It's the first thing they think about when they wake up in the morning, and it's the last thing they think about when they go to bed at night. [...] But no amount of punishment could ever compare to the stomach-grinding guilt that these officers and soldiers will live with every single day of their lives. Please forgive the Army officials for not wanting to string these people up and administer public floggings.

Every now and then, I offer the same generic, sing-songy disclaimer: I have never been in the Army, I speak as a civilian, 75% of what I know comes from my husband, the other 25% comes from movies, etc, etc, etc. That said, I would like to return to the movie Courage Under Fire, which I mentioned twice was the reason I married my husband. I've been told that this movie is pretty emotionally accurate, and when I read 2Slick's post, I kept thinking about Denzel's character. He tortures himself throughout the whole movie for the friendly fire death he caused. In the end, the soldier's family says it's easy to forgive him, but now he has to learn to forgive himself.

One night right after CPT Sims was killed, I had a dream I was a soldier clearing buildings in Iraq. I shot someone who came rushing in the door and then realized he was an American. I woke up with the worst feeling imaginable, and that was just a dream. The guilt I felt based on a dream was so horrible that I can't begin to imagine the guilt of reality.

When your husband is deployed, you can't help but mentally plan for tragedy. I don't know if anything we mentally plan would actually hold up to reality, but we unconsciously work our way through various scenarios so that they're not uncharted territory should they ever come up. Last Wednesday I had to work my way through a mental friendly fire death. That was harder than anything I've imagined so far. But I know that it wouldn't be nearly as hard for me as it would be for the soldier who fired the round. That's how you would forgive something like that.

2Slick is right: there are only victims in a friendly fire, not villains. Is that the way anyone wants their soldier to go out? Hell, no. Is that the way Pat Tillman should've gone out? Not a chance. But I think I can honestly say that I would have an easier time dealing with being the family member than with being the soldier who shot America's hero.

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