Voices of the Fallen

My auntie sent me this. Voices of the Fallen from Newsweek: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17773294/site/newsweek/


Things are going well. Doc changed units and is now non-deployable. I have been busy with work, and I had a fabulous weekend. I went to Napa to see William and Mary Shea . William was in the play "South Pacific" and was a captain. If you don't know the play, it is based in WWII on an island. It has themes of love and hope, along with the unknown, racism and fear. It's clear that many of the same issues from that time period are still alive and well. No pics though. J
Some of you might know that the book is dedicated to Mary Shea...
I have two signatures from the book, now I just need 34 more~

Mondavi Center- Davis California

Frank Rich and Tony Kushner- What an amazing combination- It was great- I took copious notes- More later-
Much talk of war, media
The Theater of Politics and the Politics of Theater

Stuff

Chronicle writer, Justin Berton, wrote a great article about a project to bring web support to the soldiers in the field. Click the link to read the article. The guy, Mike, that is interviewed is my guy's friend. His blog is listed on the link section of this blog. At any rate. It helped me understand so much about Army attitudes in the field. Please check the links. And if you read something that informs you, or resonates with you send it to me. jesse@omniartsllc.com.

Also, I posted a beautiful pic of Missy and her man, but it came out funny on my end. I followed the usual proceedures for uploading pics, and that's what happened. HELP

Last, I have had literally hundreds of people look at the blog, and many send me an email comment, but don't post comments. If you read and want to comment, just do it. Send me an email and I will try and help you, but it might be the blind leading the blind. At least we can do it together.

Upcoming: The path of waiting
Also, hopefully, Missy will write about getting submissions for Bombshells.....

MISC. Pics I want to share from my family album-- Click on the pics to enlarge!


My daughter collected Beany babies and we sent them to Doc's unit in Iraq. This particular one was "Pinky and Tom" and my daughter wanted to make sure they kept their names. Doc saw this beautiful kid and got a pic to show my daughter.

Doc and I at a Scotish Festival- When will he get that kilt! Click on the picture and read the bracelet. How many men wear these? He always has it on. I think he wears other bracelets on the inside.

My favorite cat in the whole wide world! She is 16, ratty, too thin, meows constantly, everyone at my house hates her, but I love Phoebe!


If I had a Bombshell picture, this would be it! Paula, Tozier's GF took this pic on July 4th.


JL

Bombed: Christina Now with PICS

I'm not sure which is more exausting: the guilty quasi-employed do-nothing-days; waiting for emails, phone calls, letters; can't sleep cuz his side is empty; can't sleep cuz I hate waking up; hundreds of tuna fish sandwhich meals; insatiable DVD collecting; eyeball paralysis after reading for hours and hours; YES I'D LOVE TO GO acceptance to any and all invitations to pass the time as much as enjoy friends' company; darkness of the downstairs bathroom because I didn't know how to change that weird light's bulb; driving everywhere alone; constant assurance that I had the cell phone that hardly every rang; telling family that I still hadn't heard from him and knew nothing--
OR
The I can't sleep cuz he's right here and I want to look at him and touch him; loaves and fishes laundry piles; can't finish the dishes cuz he's tickling me; going places to show people he is indeed back; suddenly realizing I DO have stuff to do and not being able to accomplish anything because there are way better things to do, like watch him play computer games; and the overall realization that 2006 is finally frikken over and real life can go on.
Except real life isn't all kisses and vacation time. I know this in my brain, but it hasn't really kicked in yet. Because since February 7th real life has basically been kisses and vacation time. But that will end next week. The vacation time anyway...I hope the kisses stick around for a while... Long story short: there's no job to go back to and by this summer we'll be somewhere else in Germany. this could be good or bad. In true Army fashion: we don't know a blasted thing.
I'm tired most of the time. I force myself (or he does) out of bed at 8 and am good for nothing by 2 in the afternoon. It's like last time: Sam came home in March after being gone a year, I graduated, we got married, and then I sort of slept for 3 months straight. Only now I can't use graduating stress and wedding stress as excuses for my limpness. In my self-counseling moments I say it's recovery from the year plus of anxiety, and it very well may be. In my fantasy moments I suggest to myself that I might pregnant. More frequently though I tell myself it's because I need to exercise more and eat better.
I'm reading Bombshells--not just my own bit (which seems pretty stupid now that I'm reading everyone else's). I've been so excited about this: finally getting something published. Oddly enough, all that stuff the FRG guys tried to prepare me for, all that reintegration be-prepared-for-let-downs-and-depression, it-won't-be-like-you-expected stuff, hasn't applied so much to my soldier being home as it has to the essay. And if I had to choose, I'd rather it be a bunch of words than my marriage. Still I didn't expect it. it was so thrilling to see MY name on the Contents page with the real writers. I'm completely out of place with them--serious-writer-wise and in most cases, experience-wise. Aside from one scary phone call made after the fact, my biggest moment of fear was hearing a knock at the door, seeing the ACUed form of a single man holding a piece of paper, brain quickly processing one guy in ACUs, no Chaplain, Sam is hurt but still alive, only to have it be a guy Sam worked with telling me I'd gotten a speeding ticket.
While I guess I feel the "sisterhood" or whatever with the other women in the book, I am more humbled and honored to be heard with their voices than I am proud of myself for being heard. I'm proud to see Sam's name and Christopher's name among the others'. The brothers-

A homefront story sent to Bombshells-

A little background on me. My family has been and will always be pro-military. In fact, I was considering enlisting in the Air Force at the time I met Shawn, but he promptly shot that down, stating, "No girlfriend of his was joining the military," he knew what the guys were like. In the years since we were married he had regretted his words, trying to convince me to join, but when I became pregnant with our fourth child I asked him to drop the subject because there were more important matters to look after, our four kids. And now my writing career is starting to take off.

Our kids, three boys and one girl. Twin eight year olds, 4 year old daughter, who is the light of her father's eyes, and Daddy's Mini-Me, he is 3. They have made this deployment easier to cope with and the toughest job on the earth because of it. They're young enough not to realize what kind of place their father is in, to blissfully continue on with their lives, but old enough to feel his absence. While most of the families in our unit count down the days by marking holidays, I have chosen a less emotional method, we take it one day at a time, one week, and one month. We focus on the here and now, and let God worry about tomorrow. We adhere to the verse, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Luke 12:25)

Most of the families in our unit have close family ties where they live. My family is one of the few that does not. We live in Illinois; our families live four hours away in Iowa. It's a blessing and a curse. But since moving here, I have made close friends who are like my family. When problems arise, and they always do during a deployment, my friends are there to help in any way they can. But there are things that they just can't replace, like having my husband here.

His mobilization didn't come as a surprise to us. For three years we were expecting it, but three years ago, we, like many families in 2003, were without a good paying job and place of our own. Shawn's desire to return to school to be a teacher led him to a Federal Technician job on an Illinois National Guard base where he could use the state's tuition program to pay for his schooling. The unit he transferred out of was deployed shortly thereafter; we had dodged that bullet. He had transferred into a new unit—the government requires they be in existence for two years. The moment they celebrated their second birthday they were handed their orders. And our eight months of preparation began.

We were criticized for telling the kids too early about Dad leaving, but those who had would never understand, our kids needed that time to prepare just as much as the adults did. Our kids are sharp, they would have realized quickly something was going on and they needed to know from us.

Friends learned of the morbid discussions we had, death and all that remains from it are never easy, but the fact of war is the possibility of death. Shawn knew exactly what I was going to do with the life insurance and what I would do if he never came home. The kids were also covered in that event, something I would never have to worry about thankfully. He also knew that I wouldn't be so easily swayed by anyone's offers, which is why when he left he didn't have to worry about me. I was taken care of financially, as I'm the home financer—he actually gets his allowance from me, and he's the accountant. If there were problems with the house, all I had to do was make a call to his boss and someone from the base would come out. A local landscaping agency takes care of our ½ acre yard—that's a lot to mow with a push mower.

Shawn stated over the phone one day after a particularly hard week with the kids: his job is a cakewalk compared to the one I have back at home. While he works six of the seven days, he knew my job was compounded by the fact I was also trying to be a father on top of my already hard job of being a mother. I've been told I'm strong, but I've had to be when I didn't want to be.

Shawn's year started when he touched down in Kuwait in the middle of September, two weeks later he was in Iraq. In that time, we have experienced many firsts, our first birthdays without him, our first Thanksgiving, Anniversary, Christmas, Valentine's Day without him, and soon to be, Easter, Father's Day and the Fourth without him. You noticed I didn't say Mother's Day. He was fortunate enough to choose his own leave dates and he'll be home then. I've had some of my best news for my writing without him here to tell first. Milestones in our youngest are missed. Things the kids say that make you die laughing, he's missed, but that's not unusual, seeing as they tended to do it when he was working anyway. But he lucked out when he married a writer, because I can describe in detail what he missed, and it's almost as if he was here to experience it himself.

But what makes this whole deployment worthwhile are the people who bend over backwards to remind me just how thankful they are for my family's sacrifice and for Shawn's service. Those are the people that don't get enough airtime on TV, but they are the reasons why we do what we do.

That in a nutshell is my story. While it could be more, I know I'd easily fill ten pages, the curse of being a fiction writer. ☺
Thanks for letting me tell it.

Regards,

Winter

Casey Nicholson- Ongoing homefront with Sailor!

We were married September '06 when he returned from a 6 month deployment, and
immediately moved to San Diego, where we have been ever since. Our
first 6 months of marraige have been incredible and memorable. This
is all about to end however.



My husband has been stationed overseas and will be deployed again only
2 weeks after we were to move overseas. Because of this I will be
staying in the states with my family, while he is gone on a 8 month
deployment.

Sadly we will not get to spend our first anniversary
together, and only half of our first year of marraige together. Just
when we were getting settled in San Diego, we were assigned to go to
Japan, and now I have to get ready to live in Michigan again.
Thankfully I have the support of my family, they are behind us one
hundred percent. Casey-

Missy and Mike (Excerpts)

This is Missy and her Man- What a Bombshell!

Graduation for Mike

From Bombshells:
....From the parking lot I could see Bravo Company’s graduating class standing in formation outside the hall where they’d soon be honored for completing 19 weeks of basic and advanced training. Mike’s last letter said he’d lost 30 pounds, and when he stepped from the line to greet me, indeed I could see that the training had erased a decade of gluttony and sloth. I reached out to grab his arm but missed the flesh and grasped only the cool rigid fabric of his fatigues. This ominous empty-handedness sent panic to my heart, and though I promised I’d stay composed, I started to cry smearing black mascara under my eyes in a conflicting mess representing both the ecstasy of seeing Mike safe and within arm’s reach, along with the agonizing fear I’d been nurturing since the day he’d enlisted, that one day I could lose my brother in combat.

....I slipped into the ladies room to fix my makeup joining two women who were also fussing with their looks in front of the mirror. A mother from Texas dabbed powder on her forehead to absorb her perspiration, and then smiled in the mirror as though she needed to practice. When I complimented her alligator boots, she said they hurt her feet, but admitted that sore feet were the least of her pain. Ever since her son had joined the Army she could barely climb out of bed, she said; in fact on this day it took all the strength she could muster to dress up and keep her hand steady enough to apply lipstick without drawing all over her face....


...Mike pointed out his comrades who had already received their orders to go to Iraq. They were laughing and gesticulating and seemed fortified with confidence. Oddly, I felt envious. Then a thought struck me that I haven’t let go: What if there was a boot camp for the psyches of every soldiers’ loved ones, a basic training to align our spirits with some battle creed that prompts in us a mechanical reaction to survive when our worst enemies—say fear, anxiety, and depression—threaten to eviscerate us?...

.... Currently, Mike is on standby for a new deployment-