Yes, we're still feeling the effects of our lovely OCONUS move.

We paid off our first car while my husband was in Iraq. The lienholder mailed us a letter saying to complete the title, we needed to go to our local DMV. Um, our local DMV was a bunch of Germans working on post in the pseudo-licensing office. The German lady looked at my documents and shrugged. I think I remember her saying at the time that we might run into problems later down the road.

We sure did. But that was nearly four years ago, and I didn't think much of it.

We moved back to the US and reregistered our cars in our state of record. By mail. That car has not been back in Missouri since we bought it back in 2002. Which meant the problem was never noticed...until today. We went to register our cars in our new state, and our lien was never shown as lifted.

So now what? How do I undo a problem that was created four years ago, and 1000 miles away? And through the fricking DMV, of all headaches.

What an unnecessary pain in the neck it was to live in Germany.

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My husband got his score on his oral exam today. He got a 3. No one else in the entire language program, in any of the languages, even Spanish, got a 3. He was the only one to score so high.

He is embarrassed that I am posting this, but I am tickled pink. Now let's just hope he can do as well on the written exam in two weeks.

And tomorrow he jumps out of an airplane. What a life he leads!

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1 Holy Moly! That is impressive! Will he qualify for FLP pay? I hope so.

Posted by: R1 at January 23, 2008 05:33 PM (y1Xat)

2 The result sure came in quickly. Congratulations again! Was that a 3 on the DLI scale? http://www.dlielc.org/testing/opi_examinees.html "Level '3' speakers can converse in formal and informal situations, resolve problem situations, deal with unfamiliar topics, provide explanations, describe in detail, offer supported opinions, and hypothesize. Speakers at this level use complex sentence structures with frequency and facility, and their broad vocabulary includes many abstract nouns. Their pronunciation and communication errors almost never interfere with a native speaker's understanding and listening comfort." Going from zero to that in a short time is no easy task, particularly in a non-European language requiring more time to learn: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbaxter/howhard.html I'm impressed. Hope he gets to use this new skill!

Posted by: Amritas at January 23, 2008 08:45 PM (uJSNW)

3 In case anyone is interested, here's a more detailed description of the DLI OPI scale going from 0 to 5: http://www.dlielc.org/testing/opi_levels.html 4 looks like native-speaker level, and 5 is for nonnatives who can beat most natives at their own game. According to Baxter's site, a Farsi learner requires 50% more time than a Spanish learner to reach level 2. I would guess that the gap doesn't narrow much at the higher levels, since higher-level Persian has more Arabic which is still alien to an English speaker, whereas higher-level European vocabulary becomes more recognizable since it's largely shared with English. And the gap is also cultural. Understanding a non-European culture is harder than understanding a Western one. But I'm still impressed by second-language English speakers from Europe who have somehow learned seemingly every nuance of American culture - who can watch FAMILY GUY or SOUTH PARK and get most of the references.

Posted by: Amritas at January 23, 2008 09:03 PM (uJSNW)

4 *clap clap clap*

Posted by: airforcewife at January 24, 2008 01:58 AM (mIbWn)

5 WOW

Posted by: awtm at January 24, 2008 03:27 AM (b8z4b)

6 CONGRATS! He is going to destroy the rest of the test. Awesome!

Posted by: deltasierra at January 24, 2008 08:56 AM (woXks)

7 Holy cow! Congratulations to him! I'm glad Amritas put the entire explanation up - that's mind blowing.

Posted by: Teresa at January 24, 2008 05:03 PM (rVIv9)

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In three weeks, my husband joins the Army. No, really. For the past year and a half (two and a half if you ask him; he doesn't consider his time in Finance to be "the Army") he has been in Army schools. Life has been super easy on us. But all that changes in three weeks: he'll get assigned to a battalion and then find out which continent he's deploying to and when. Life's about to get interesting again.

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1 Fingers crossed all goes smoothly! We're here for you and the Mr. no matter what that paperwork says.

Posted by: Guard Wife at January 14, 2008 12:03 PM (BslEQ)

2 Of course, what is REALLY important is that Mr. Husband puts in enough hours for that coveted PowerPoint Ranger patch before going back to the "real Army". It's 1000 hours+ and highly competitive. He made it, right? I'll never forget the tears in my eyes when Air Force Guy got his...

Posted by: airforcewife at January 14, 2008 12:22 PM (mIbWn)

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Last night on SpouseBUZZ Talk Radio, Andi and AirForceWife interviewed two military wives: Stephanie from She Who Waits and Elaine, a Vietnam-era Army wife. It was so interesting to hear what life was like for the "waiting wives" of Vietnam.

My favorite story was when Elaine said that, because she has epilepsy, the doctor told her that she could inform the Army of her condition and her husband wouldn't have to go overseas. Elaine said she went home from the doctor and never told her husband the info. She knew he was a soldier and she wasn't going to be the one to prevent him from doing his job. What a lady!

If you want to listen to the archive, it will be available here at Blog Talk Radio.

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Did you know that on July 9, 1776, the newly-written Declaration of Independence was read to a crowd in New York City? Page 137 of the excellent book 1776 (which I bought on recommendation from Neal Boortz) says:

The formal readings concluded, a great mob of cheering, shouting soldiers and townspeople stormed down Broadway to Bowling Green, where, with ropes and bars, they pulled down the gilded lead statue of George III on his colossal horse. In their fury the crowd hacked off the sovereign's head, severed the nose, clipped the laurels that wreathed the head, and mounted what remained of the head on a spike outside a tavern.

Now that sounds wonderfully familiar. I got such a kick out of the parallel with Baghdad. However, the Saddam statue was melted down and made into a memorial for the 4th Infantry Division. That's a lovely end to a brutal dictator's ode to himself. But the warmonger in me likes what happened to the George III statue:

Much of the lead from the rest of the statue would later be, as reported, melted down for bullets "to assimilate with the brains of our infatuated adversaries."

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I am loving Butterfly Wife's R&R posts. Just loving them. They make me remember my own R&R and smile. If you've ever had an R&R, I highly recommend heading to her blog and just scrolling. I am sure it will sound familiar.

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We have a lot of wounded from this war, which I've sometimes heard mentioned as a bad thing. But we have the wounded because we don't have as many who are dead.

Like SPC Channing Moss, who got impaled by a live RPG and lived.

Lived.

I don't think you'll hear him complain that we have too many wounded from this war. He's just happy not to be one of the other statistics.

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I've been meaning to write my post on Valour-IT for a few days now. I've also been meaning to wash my hair and eat something other than breakfast cereal. Alas, I have failed at a lot of things lately.

Read here about the Valour-IT fundraiser.

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RagingMom berates us as a country for not having any patience:

Some years ago, I had a conversation with a friend of mine, a World War II veteran, in which he described his decision to put the cow-milking business on hiatus to enlist in the Marine Corps. He would leave town on the train to Chicago and not come home for over three years.

Can you imagine that? Better yet, can you imagine being his mother, never once getting to even speak to him in three years? Three years, waiting day to day for casualty lists to be published, for the awful sight of two uniformed men on your porch, never knowing where your child is or if he is alive, or whole.

The headlines wouldnÂ’t have helped.

WAR CABINET READY FOR LONG WAR: WILL WIN AT ALL COSTS

And yet, people endured this. Even when MacArthur abandoned the Philippines, the failure of Operation Market Garden, the horrible casualties in the Ardennes and Iwo Jima, even when it was not clear at all that we were winning this war, one thing had to be clear: that we could not afford to lose it, either.

And this perspective from someone who will soon have all three of her sons in Iraq.

We are indeed an instant gratification culture. I want a baby right now. People want to graduate from college and have the house of their dreams and two new cars right away. We want the war to be over right now. I find it to be one of the worst American habits. We all need to get over this feeling; not everything can be fast-food style.

I have been working on it myself a lot lately. Patience. Long term perspective.

Kudos to RagingMom; she has perspective in spades.

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Here we go again!

The first of December probably won't be covered with snow in North Carolina, but it will be full of milspouses as we converge on Fayetteville.

And we'll have a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower from our venue. No, seriously.

If you're anywhere near Fort Bragg, I encourage you to come out for this event. You can read all the details about registering at SpouseBUZZ.

I already have two attendees staying at my house...

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A certain Silver Star recipient former tanker Indian type is in the car headed our direction. It's been two years since we've seen him, so it should be a good day. Too cool.

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I just heard Herman Cain on the radio, asking callers to call in and say where they were on 9/11/01 and how it changed their lives. I started thinking about what I'd say if I called in. I've said all this stuff before on the blog, but it's worth summarizing today.

On 9/11/01 I was a stupid kid who didn't know a thing about the world. I hated politics, put my fingers in my ears any time someone mentioned Israel, and was shockingly naive about how deep the world's hatred for my country ran. I was at school that day and was annoyed that my fellow classmates all wanted to go home; I thought they all just wanted an excuse for a day off. New York was 800 miles away, so there was no reason we couldn't continue with our lessons. I was engaged to a guy in Army ROTC, and the severity of 9/11 still didn't sink in. In short, I was a complete idiot.

Today I started thinking that if 9/11 hadn't happened, my life would be quite different. My husband was slated to join the Army for four years of Finance. My guess is that he would've completed his commitment and taken his business mind elsewhere for more money. Certainly he wouldn't have stayed in and chosen to learn Farsi. We'd probably be somewhere in the Midwest, working and living like most of our peers.

Although I was too obtuse and self-absorbed to realize it at the time, 9/11 changed everything for me.

And 9/11 changed the blogging world too. Early in the morning of 9/11/01, Steven den Beste wrote a post about online gambling. Guess what he posted on the rest of the week, and more or less for the rest of his blogging career. If it weren't for the path that he and others like him forged, I might still be sitting with my fingers in my ears.

Without 9/11, I never would've learned to think.

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The husband and I had a talk tonight, about going to war, about being left behind, about duty, honor, and glory. I shed a tear, we shared an embrace...and then we watched 300. It is such a fitting thing, to watch 300. And nothing gets to me like Queen Gorgo's speech:

I am not here to represent Leonidas; his actions speak louder than my words ever could. I am here for all those voices which cannot be heard: mothers, daughters, fathers, sons - three hundred families that bleed for our rights, and for the very principles this room was built upon. We are at war, gentlemen. We must send the entire Spartan army to aid our king in the preservation of not just ourselves, but of our children. Send the army for the preservation of liberty. Send it for justice. Send it for law and order. Send it for reason. But most importantly, send our army for hope - hope that a king and his men have not been wasted to the pages of history - that their courage bonds us together, that we are made stronger by their actions, and that your choices today reflect their bravery.

We are made stronger by their actions.

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1 Man, that speech was the best part of the movie. P.S. I don't live near a Michael's. We only have Hobby Lobby.

Posted by: Erin at September 07, 2007 06:48 PM (XRza7)

2 I LOVE that movie. And I agree with Erin, that's the best part of the movie.

Posted by: Green at September 07, 2007 07:05 PM (VqW06)

3 That movie was so awesome. Our entire theater gave it a standing ovation in the end.

Posted by: airforcewife at September 08, 2007 03:33 AM (emgKQ)

4 That's Jim's favorite movie We went and saw it at the local IMAX theatre.

Posted by: Kate at September 10, 2007 11:51 AM (tB/4l)

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Miss Ladybug writes a nice post explaining her take on an article about why we need the draft. She does a good job of explaining her side. I have one thing to add about this part in the original article:

Consequently, we have a severe talent deficiency in the military, which the draft would remedy immediately. While America’s bravest are in the military, America’s brightest are not. Allow me to build a squad of the five brightest students from MIT and Caltech and promise them patrols on the highways connecting Baghdad and Fallujah, and I’ll bet that in six months they could render IED’s about as effective as a “Just Say No” campaign at a Grateful Dead show.

First of all, my husband just whooped MIT's butt at that Fast Money MBA Challenge, and he went to a state school and chose to be in the Army. So I'm thinking he could do just as well at "patrols on the highways" as Ivy Leaguers could. Hell, he would do better since he wants to be there instead of being forced to be there; I don't care how smart you were at school, if you don't have the drive and desire to apply your brain power to a problem, you ain't gonna fix it either.

But secondly, and here's my real contribution, smarter doesn't always make you a better soldier. My husband likes to tell one anecdote: The guy in their company with the highest ASVAB score, so presumably the smartest soldier, was the one my husband had to put in jail in Iraq. The best soldier they had, the one everyone wanted to work with, was the old gangbanger.

There are plenty of smart people in the military; I'd rather talk to Jack Army about the Middle East than anyone at Caltech. But book smarts isn't always what the Army needs, especially if it's been forced to be there. Somehow I get a little giggle imagining this Marine corporal trying to organize a squad of drafted Ivy Leaguers. I'm not sure it'd go as swimmingly as he thinks it would.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:07 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Families Cracking Under War Pressure

Sigh.

Love My Tanker does a good job of fisking this article. I will just point out a few things, less diplomatically than she does.

"I don't know one military family that is still together or anything like they were before the Soldier in the family went to war," 30-year-old Mylinda, whose husband was among the first Marines to be deployed in Iraq, told AFP.

We're still together and exactly the same as we were before. Only better. My husband has matured as a man, as a leader, and as a citizen. He is a far better person for having been to war because he now understands things that most of us only know from books. If he's changed at all, it's for the better. Me too, for I had to spend a year being self-reliant, not whiny, and strong.

"Now, you have boy scouts fighting over there. They get kids out of high school, put them in boot camp and then send them to fight.

"When they get out, all they know how to do is kill someone."

Yes, my husband now knows how to kill someone. He also knows how to talk to people about electricity, gas shortages, getting along with their neighbors, and training to be soldiers themselves. Because he went to war, he changed career paths and now is learning to speak their language so he can continue to talk to them about how to make their countries better. Talk to them. If he was just going to kill them, he wouldn't need to waste six months learning to speak their language.

My husband is a better person because he's been to war, and we're a stronger couple because of it. Better. Maybe you could interview someone like us next time.

MORE:

FbL points out that this article got picked up at Islam Online under the title "Unseen American Victims of Iraq." Great.

Posted by: Sarah at 01:00 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 "They get kids out of high school..." Apparently Mylinda gets her idiocy from her own mother (who made that statement). I guess Mylinda's mom never figured out that... the military has ALWAYS let 18 year olds enlist directly out of high school... With a statement like that, the rest of the article loses any and all meaning. But since it's by the French news agency, I expected no less. I'm just wondering why military.com felt compelled to carry such a stupid article. There are many complaints that can be made about the military, legitimate complains, not this kind of tripe!

Posted by: Teresa at September 06, 2007 03:40 PM (rVIv9)

2 How about military.com post an article like this, "Troops and Families Cracking Under the Strain of Stupid Media W***e Outlets"

Posted by: airforcewife at September 06, 2007 03:47 PM (emgKQ)

3 ""About three-quarters of the veterans acknowledged having some family problem at least once a week."" What constitutes a "family problem"? If it's just a disagreement, then my hubby and I fall into that category and he's not military! That is a very vague statement.

Posted by: Tracy at September 06, 2007 04:54 PM (wFSe9)

4 Thanks for the laugh, Sarah. I love it. The Army is now responsible for happy or unhappy marriages. We are the great, the powerful, OZ! She's entitled to her viewpoint, but I would be very interested to hear her husband's side of the story. I'm guessing it would be something about her whining all the time and nothing was ever her fault? Boy, and the mother - she makes it sound like we're loading up flatbed trucks with crying boys in boy scout uniforms. Guess she forgot to mention that $20,000 bonus and the VOLUNTEER part of it. Very small brain pans on those two.

Posted by: Oda Mae at September 06, 2007 09:00 PM (I0e9i)

5 "They get kids out of high school..." Following on from Teressa's point above: this one has always irritated me. Suppose they work at McDonald's for a month then sign up, would that be ok? What about two months? Here in Britain the usual one is "He had only been out of basic training for 3 months when he died". Yes, its tragic when someone is killed before they have the chance to make something of themselves, but what do the media suggest? We keep them in a depot for three months (with the attendant 'skill fade'...) first? Maybe six months? Then you'd just get articles saying "He was only six months out of basic training..." or "He was only one month out of depot...". At some age society accepts you are old enough to decide what you want to do. Some people choose to join the army. The army decides how much training you need before you can be sent to war - there is no possible benefit in under-training you if they need the job done. Once you have completed that you are ready (well, in so far as you ever will be). Anyway, rant over. Hi, Sarah, I've been reading your blog for a few years now. Did you know you have an international military audience?

Posted by: RGT at September 06, 2007 11:50 PM (6lVxB)

6 "International military audience" makes me feel so exotic!

Posted by: Sarah at September 07, 2007 02:27 AM (TWet1)

7 Thanks for the link, Sarah! Not only did it get picked up, but it got "edited for clarity," too. Very, very ugly.

Posted by: FbL at September 07, 2007 08:28 AM (TXlt9)

8 Well said, Sarah!

Posted by: LMT at September 09, 2007 05:09 AM (ASoq0)

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This article needs no introduction. Just go read it.
My Cousin Frankie

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A man affectionately called "Grandpa Rambo" is deploying to Iraq. He's been trying to get there for two years. His wife's reaction is so cute; it reminds me of that old couple on the airplane:

HorneÂ’s wife Sydney West, also a public defender, said he gave her no advance notice of his decision to re-enlist, and she wasnÂ’t surprised that he opted for a combat job over anything else, including putting his legal background to use.

“I wouldn’t think he’d want to go over there to write wills,” she told the newspaper. “If he gets back alive, I’m going to kill him.”

But here's how this feel-good article ended:

As for those who might call him irresponsible for heading off to combat with two children at home, Horne said: “I can’t think of a better example to set for them.”

Good for Grandpa Rambo for answering that question the only way you can. Irresponsible? About half of people in Iraq and Afghanistan right now have children. Are we really suggesting that everyone in the armed forces is irresponsible for putting their country before their children? We wouldn't have an Army if that were the case.

Can we please stop hiding anti-military sentiment behind nonsense phrases like "As for those who might call him" (blank)? You call him that, weinery reporter, or give a full quote where he addresses the topic. Stop hiding your bias behind phrases like "some people think."

(Thanks to Conservative Grapevine for the link.)

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CaliValleyGirl found a great article on Iraq translated from German. It's quite long, but worth the read. And, as she says, it's even-handed. It starts with

Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq -- it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.

and gets both better and worse from there. Please go read it.

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I know everyone's BS detector is running on high after Scott Beauchamp, so maybe I'm treading heavily. But I'm puzzled by a Newsweek article on MSNBC today. The reporter's cousin just came home from Iraq, so a homecoming article was in order. It seemed like an ordinary tale of happiness and relief until she delineated her family's fears during the previous year. And then this odd paragraph appeared:

I’d read reports of some female soldiers allegedly being raped by Iraqi insurgents—some 50 to 75 rapes, according to The New York Times. Alexia assured us that several male soldiers had volunteered to walk her home after she stood post at night. But that reassurance still couldn’t erase the images of assaults, bombs and corpses.

In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary...come again?

A google search of "raped by insurgent" brought nothing but tales from Sierra Leone. A search of "raped by Iraqi" brought horrible tales from Iraqi women, and a hit on Jessica Lynch. But aside from her, do you know of any story of a captured female coalition soldier who was raped? Who are these 50-75 women and how are they getting raped in Iraq? Getting raped by an insurgent means getting caught and captured, and I don't remember hearing about this. Please point me in the direction of the stories if I have missed them, but for now I remain completely puzzled.

My husband also pointed out that an escort on the way home from the guard tower wouldn't exactly prevent insurgent rape. Soldier-on-soldier crime, perhaps, but surely these insurgents are not scaling the walls and raping American females on duty. Something is just not right here.

I also find it hard to believe there are heat-of-the-battle rapes going on in Iraq, where females are getting raped while their male counterparts are too busy firing at the bad guys. We certainly would've heard of this, right? It's the anti-war left's dream story.

If you can find this Times article or any leads on such rape stories, please let me know. Until then, I'm having a hard time believing insurgents are raping our female soldiers and getting away with it.

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You know, I talk a good talk about our family's role in the GWOT, but I know we haven't even begun to sacrifice. My husband's been gone once, over two years ago. I had no one to worry about but myself, and I lived on the most supportive post in the military. My husband is almost certainly guaranteed to get a piece of the action in his new unit, but for a long time now I really have been a chairborne war cheerleader.

I'm a few days late in noticing this news, but Butterfly Wife's husband has volunteered to stay for another rotation in Iraq. Without coming home in between. I don't even know how his sanity can handle that, but I guess his pseudonym isn't Jack Bauer for nothin'.

Many days I feel like the country has gone completely bonkers, but then I remember that there really are people of such high caliber around me. What can we even say to this butterfly family except thank you...and you rule.

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