Keeping in Touch
Keeping in touch has been a huge thing since Howie has been deployed. I try to talk to Howie every week. When he first left I was calling him from my cell phone, but that brought my cell phone bill to close to 400 hundred dollars. Each call was like 2.99 a minute. In addition to that At&T charges roaming charges to Howie’s phone anytime it is on, the charge for that is 1.99 a minute! So I had to get phone cards and Howie got a pay in advance type of phone in Kuwait. So that has been a better way for us to keep in touch, because my monthly phone card budget has been fifty dollars and he puts about sixty dollars on his phone so he is able to talk to me. But I think the amount of money I had to pay to AT&T is ridiculous. So for me I mainly just talk to Howie on the phone, but there are other ways of communication with the troops.
The troops have access to a computer lab, where they can go on the internet and send pictures or use Skype, however the lines for these places are pretty long. I think that Howie is being lazy and doesn’t want to stand in line so he’d rather do the cell phone thing. There are also phone that are like pay phones that the soldiers can use, but again the lines for these things are long. Of course you can always write a letter, but who does that anymore!
I think the way Howie and I do our communication is really good. It makes me feel good knowing I can call him anytime I want (and I do call him anytime I want regardless of the time difference, I know I’m mean) and as long as he is not on mission he will answer. It keeps us feeling close being so far away. The other really cool thing about talking anytime we want is that our kids can talk to him. Lately my daughter has been asking where daddy is and that she misses him so whenever she asks me about daddy I whip out my cell phone and get him on the phone so she can hear his voice.
Helping the people
Do you believe that the soldiers that are in Kuwait or Iraq should be giving out water and food to the people of those countries? My first response to this was yes of course! But what if a soldier filled that water with something other than water? Than what is the US government responsible? So what should be done?
I was talking to my husband and he was saying that when he first came to Kuwait his orders were to give out water to the people as they accompanied convoys into Iraq. I thought that this was great. I am a firm believer that these are people and I think we should help our fellow-man when we see them in trouble. When I tell people Howie went to Abu Ghrab the first question that people ask is was he part of the horrid things the soldiers did out there. And my natural response is to get mad but then I simply explain Howie was there after all of that happened and he is not the kind of person to degrade another person like those soldiers did. Well back to the water thing a couple of weeks ago Howie told me that the higher-ups said that the soldiers could no longer pass out water to the locals. I asked him why. Well apparently one of the soldiers in his group did something stupid and now it is not allowed. I don’t think Howie wanted to tell me much more detail than that and I’m not sure I wanted to hear anymore than that.
So after this incident happened Howie unit went on more convoys and the all of the sudden got attacked. Mortars were going off in their direction. And since a lot more IED’s have been found. IED’s are improvised explosive devices. From my knowledge these are bombe that are hidden in the roads. Since some roads in Iraq are very poorly made, they have lots of potholes and so the insurgents place this IED’s into the potholes and as the convoy approaches the go off.
This is picture of the holes made by a mortar going off.
This is a video of an IED
So could it be that the people are sending a message. Think about some the people are very poor, they don’t even have homes, they may not have access to water and the Americans passing out bottled water to them was probably one of the biggest acts of compassion and now it’s gone. So I would imagine they are upset.
On the other hand if you are instructing troops to give out water to the locals and a dummy in the group does something stupid, you should do something about that. I would imagine the soldier had consequences for his actions as they are a bad image of the troops overall. I think that action is correct but I think that the troops should be able to go back to giving water to the civilians and my husband does too. I may be wrong that the attacks on his unit have to do with the troops not giving out water, but I think the it’s interesting that these attacks started only after they stopped passing the water out.
Why did you deploy
I have been thinking all week about what to blog about. I mean really you heard about my mushy complaining, you heard about some the missions my husband is doing, we talked about care packages, so really what more can I possibly say about this topic. You know I’m actually kind of glad it’s like that because I look at the local newspaper in Kuwait and really locally it’s all pretty every day normal stuff. Even Howie tells me I have nothing to worry about, so for this I am thankful. There was a bombing in Iraq and people were killed and it is a tragic loss of life. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to blog about it though because I really didn’t look too much into it. So this week I think I want to talk about why my husband chose to deploy. So here we go.
I am not sure if I mentioned this but my husband is a member of the Florida National Guard, he is not a regular; this is my only job army member. For those that may not know how the National Guard works, in a nutshell it’s something like this: the men and women typically have civilian jobs they only train one weekend out of the month and two weeks out of the year. They only get paid military pay for the time they train, which makes sense. The free medical insurance does not apply to these members however they can get military insurance at discounted rate. The GI benefits for school do apply to the members.
So there is the background now we can explore why my husband chose to go on this mission. As a National Guard member you are guaranteed deployment every 5 years. My husband first deployment was in 2005-2006. That deployment was mandatory, as he said it “his five years were up.” Now technically his second deployment would have been in 2011 but he chose this deployment, he volunteered. Now a lot of people did not understand this move including me for a very long time. My friends would ask why would he ever volunteer. What did you do? I even would ask myself am I that horrible that he would want to leave to go across the globe to get away from me?
Then a wonderful epiphany hit me, he deployed to take care of me. While we lived in Florida we had struggled with money. Howie struggled to find employment. He felt like he wasn’t doing his part as the provider. So he chose this deployment as a means to take care of our family financially. Now that he is deployed he is earning money to be able to provide for us. So I was on the phone with him the other day and I asked if after this deployment he will volunteer again and he hopes not to but if the jobs out in Colorado are not any better than they were in Florida than he will volunteer again. So once again I will be blogging my mushiness!
Packages
“He is at a war zone why are you buying him video game?” My friend and I were at the store recently and I was buying stuff for my husbands care package. The contents of the box were so juvenile,it was almost silly. I made my husband an Easter basket filled with every jelly bean brand imaginable and lots of other stuff. I also bought him a video game to play on his PSP, ironically it was a war game. The funny thing is that I try to send him a care package every month as long as he provides me the address to send it to and every month I send things that are not essentials to life but fun little things that he could probably get for himself. These packages became a subject of debate between my friend and me recently.
My friend had said to me he is in a war zone why does he need video games. She seems to think that this is frivolous need. I tried to think about it and in reality maybe a video game or box of honey buns is not essential but those things mean more to the soldiers.
They get a feeling of excitement in receiving a box. “You pick up a gun/ riffle everyday you want to have something more waiting for you,” said my husband. The soldiers get a feeling like they are not alone that their family members think about them and care about them. I think about how horrible it would feel if I never got a package or letter from home if I were far away from my family. and yes you can talk on the phone, you can email, or even use Skype but that is not the same as having something tangible and knowing it cam from your loved one.
Care package come from all over now not just from family members. There are so many organization that do care packages to soldiers. All of these efforts are just to make sure the soldiers know that they are appreciated and that they are cared about. I’m sure it’s easy to feel detached from the world when you are so far away from your family.
Like I said my packages to Howie are not essential to life, but they are essential to him. I know well enough to know that if I get him a box of honey buns he’ll be happy because it would show that I remember that is his favorite snack. I think it’s the little things that count.
Swine Flu in Kuwait
I know this topic is not something that really fits with my last couple of posts. But I think I should get out of my regularly emotional posts and talk about something more factual. I have been reading somethings that are going on in Kuwait and really it seems to be a pretty good place to be if you are deployed, well in contrast to places like Iraq or Afghanistan. But Kuwait has a new potential threat to the troops and that threat is the Swine Flu or H1N1. In an article from Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE54M1G720090524 it is said that 18 soldiers have been confirmed to have the virus. This was the first case of the swine flu in the Gulf Arab region. Now granted this actually happened in 2009, but because the spread of the swine flu is so feared it is still relevant to soldiers there today. According to the article the soldiers that were initially infected had brought the virus with them. They were quarantined and were treated. thankfully the virus is said not to have passed on to the population.
So what does the swine flu have to do with soldiers now? Well that means that all the soldiers must be vaccinated for H1N1. Also when entering Kuwait all soldiers must go through a screening to ensure that they do not have the virus. Since the virus is very fast spreading. According to USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-05-24-swineflu-troops_N.htm there have been 12,022 cases and 86 deaths in 42 countries. Thankfully though Kuwait has taken measures to control the spread of swine flu and from the news indicated there hasn’t been a major outbreak.
Will Things Be The Same
So as I have said this is Howie’s second deployment and it makes me wonder when he comes back how will things be? When he was in Iraq the first time I learned a lot about myself. I realized how to live on my own. Before Howie’s first deployment I had never had to live on my own. I had married Howie when I was 18 years old and before that I lived with my parents. So here I was at 19 with a six month old baby living across the country from my parents or any other family members and a husband that was in Iraq. I had to make it work! I couldn’t concentrate on being alone I had to concentrate on being independent. So that’s what I did. I learned how to get along without a partner. As my daughter grew though I had to teach her who her daddy was because she had forgot who he was. So when Howie finally came back our daughter was still kind of shaky on the whole idea of daddy and who was this man that was so eager to be a part of her life. I think Howie probably felt out of place because I had been operating on a routine that did not include him and I had a hard time breaking that habit. This caused a lot of friction between us over time.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how the future will be. This time around we have two kids. So will this be twice the friction? My son is pretty young he’s not even three yet so will he remember his daddy? Or will he be uneasy about it when Howie gets back. According to the article that I read at http://www.nncc.org/Child.Dev/ages.stages.3y.html even three year olds don’t have memory of yesterday like adults do. So does that mean that my husband will not be remembered by my son? I do my best to show pictures of Howie to my kids and make sure to say that’s daddy, but is that really enough? Then for me how do I let go the control of the household and learn to share? All of this makes things so complicated! I know that it’s a long way away Howie still has a year before his return but the more time passes the more comfortable I get with a routine that will need to change.
What do I say
You know I really appreciate the comments you guys have left. They are really nice. This kind of leads into my post. I don’t really know what I am suppose to say when people say thank you to me for my hubby being overseas. I always feel really awkward about because really I don’t deserve the thank you, I didn’t do anything. I go about my day as usual; get up take care of my kids, go to class, go to work, come home, take care of my kids, and go to bed. I genuinely appreciate the concern, I just feel weird saying thank you because than I feel like I am taking the credit away from the troops. The funny thing is I’m not really sure if my husband knows what to say either. of course he always says thank you, but he always has a funny little chuckle along with it. like I said I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because it’s only out of care and concern and true appreciation that people say thank you, but really what do you think i should say back?
The Jobs
This is a picture I got from my husband when he was in Iraq. He is so handsome in his uniform and if you look closely he took my daughter’s Rugrats’ pen! Tough guy!
Let’s talk about Kuwait
In an effort to stay informed about Kuwait, I decided to look into a little bit of it’s background. Kuwait is a country that was overseen by Britain until 1961. In the 1990′s it was attacked by it’s neighbor Iraq. With help of US forces the country was liberated https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ku.html.
While I was researching these few facts I came across this video and I was so amazed at how this country has bounced back from all the violence. This video shows the devastation caused in the 1990 and how the area looks now. It is absolutely amazing! I think this is this great I don’t know of anywhere else that would look so dramatically different in such a short amount of time!
O’ Guilt
Seeing as my Sergeant is still training and not in Kuwait yet, I want to start out with my own feelings on him going to Kuwait. I’m terrified! I know he is a wonderful soldier and very quick on his feet. It’s second nature to him to be able to get out of situations, but at the same time I can’t help but be scared. He has been my rock for many years and I always worry that if anything were to happen to him my world would crumble. Having said that I know that I cannot be consumed with worry. My husband and I have two young kids that need me to be their rock. My husband also needs a rock at home and not a woman who is broken. So even though I’m worried I remain a rock.
As a result of being strong I know that my life needs to go on and I need to take care of our kids. So we go out to the movies and the park and this then turns into my feeling of guilt. Guilt that I am enjoying my kids when my husband is working all day long preparing for a mission that risks his life. I feel so bad that I can laugh and enjoy my kids when he is away and can’t do those things. Apparently I’m not alone in my feeling of quilt; I stumbled upon a blog of an army wife that understands exactly what I’m talking about http://welcometotheblogofanarmywife.blogspot.com/2010/01/army-wife-guilt.html. Now it also helps that my hubby is constantly telling me not to feel guilty and he says that it’s not that bad for him (I don’t know if he just says that though).
Currently my husband is in Fort Hood, Texas. This army base was just in the news for the deadly shooting brought on by Army psychiatrist (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33678801/). When the shooting happened it was a big blow because we already knew that he was to go there for his training. In my head I was saying “great you’re not even deployed and I’m already sick with worry!” I asked him how things were different there now and he said it’s a lot more secure now and now the civilians are a lot wearier, but nobody wants to talk about what happened. I don’t know that I agree with that because if you don’t talk about what went wrong that time how are you going to make sure that it won’t happen again.
Well all I know is that while his mission is to fight for his country my mission is to honor him and our family by taking care of business at home. Even though I am not very religious when I stumbled onto this prayer I thought it was pretty good way of how I feel:
