Jessica Scott

I’ve blogged a lot about my experience in Iraq with some of the folks I’ve worked with. I’ve also been honest with you about some of my failures, both as a leader and as an officer. But at the end of the day, my failures in those situations, my decisions to act or not act for whatever my justifications, were my decisions and my failure has weighed heavily on my heart.

The second and third order effects of my failures are that some people in the army have gotten promoted due to my unwillingness or inability to fall on my sword.

A few weeks ago, I had a phenomenal opportunity to sit down with my former brigade commander and pick his brain about my future as a company commander. In the hour and a half that he sat with me, we talked about some of the things that went wrong and some of the things that he saw that I had not. A hard lesson I had to learn as I’ve come through the ranks is that the people above me making decisions have access to information I do not have and he saw things at his level that I simply did not and even if I did, we would not have seen the same things.

When we talked about NCO/officer relationship, I confessed to him where I failed. I told him explicitly what I did and why I did it. Do you have any idea how hard it is to look into the face of a leader you respect and admire and look up to and tell him how badly you screwed up? And to watch the disappointment flicker there when he told me how many weak words I’d just used?

Yeah, it sucks. And you know what else? He didn’t cut me any slack. He told me point blank that the action I took probably result in that individual being promoted. Maybe even being my first sergeant. He laid it out for me. And then he said get over it. Did you learn from it? I said yes. He then laid out for me that some fights are worth lying on your sword for, some are not but that I made the best decision I could at the time and that other people had a vote. It was not only my decision that sent that NCOER through.

It was truly cathartic for me to admit what I’d done and where I failed. I’ve carried around that failure with me for a year now. That NCOER was mostly the truth but it was better than it should have been. But I also learned a powerful lesson and when he explained to me that no relationship is static, they are constantly in flux and subject to assessment, I had an epiphany as to where I’d failed. I’d failed to constantly adjust and redefine right and left limits in that specific relationship.

So I’ve finally found a way to let go of the guilt I’ve been carrying around inside me for this. It was not an absolution but a way of finally learning what I was supposed to from that whole experience. Because for the life of me, before I’d talked with my former commander, I had no idea what I was supposed to learn from what, in my mind, was one of the biggest mistakes as an officer I’ve made to date.

I understand so many more things now but with that understanding comes new expecations. It’s like one burden has been lifted, replaced by a new responsibility to live up to the things he taught me.

I’m so incredibly lucky to have been part of this brigade and have this brigade commander to step on my neck. That sounds funny but he demanded more from me than I ever thought possible and sometimes more than I thought was fair. But he held me to a high level of performance and he told me I’d lived up to his expectations.

Hearing that? Well I can’t really explain how that made me feel.

It made a lot of the painful lessons of the last two plus years worthwhile. I understood his intent very clearly from the moment he told me what had happened to him in Sadr City. I knew what his intent was for communications in his brigade and I busted my ass to make that happen. I didn’t always succeed but I never quit.

I was meant to go through that pain to learn those lessons. Finally, I understand some of the things that have been driving me absolutely nuts. And I’ve had the opportunity to be influenced by one of the strongest leaders I’ve ever met in my entire career.

I hope the signal world is ready for some venom because that was his charge to me as I leave this brigade and head back to my roots in the signal corps. But I’ll never forget where I come from or the foundation that was laid for me as an officer in my brigade.

Oh and I’m completely borrowing one of his sayings. I will freely admit to it right here: Don’t Mistake My Passion for Anger.

This ought to be interesting.

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I’ve been passively working on my family tree for a decade or so. Around 2000, when my last grandmother became sick, I developed an obsession to find out more about my grandparents and their lives.

Then I stopped because I was overcome by events. The folder went to my mom’s where it sat. When Gramma passed away, I as given boxes of pictures,which I put into albums and made my parents sit down and label.

So I’m pretty lucky. I’ve got 2 ginormous albums of my grandparents and their brothers and sisters. Pics of my parents and their siblings as kids.

But the coolest thing, I think was having pictures of my grandfathers in World War II. I’ve got Grampa Scott’s basic training graduation picture. I’ve got Grampa Cupero’s enlistment records from ancestry.com. Before he passes away, my Great Uncle Anthony told me that Grampa Cupero had been in the 9th Infantry Division, so I went a did some history. They were part of the invasion of North Africa during World War II.

I don’t have a ton. I’ve got pictures of my grandfathers posing in those typical GI photos with their buddies. Their friend’s names have been lost in history.

I think its pretty cool to be able to look back on my family’s history and see military service in there. My daughters will one day be able to look up their dad and me and find our military records out there. My grandfathers were part of World War II. My husband and I are both part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

With any luck, by the time they’re old enough to understand all that, the wars will be viewed as having been worth it. As having been the right thing to do. We’re too close right now to be able to make those judgments. Maybe with time, we’ll be able to see things more clearly.

Remember that this weekend is not about barbecue and picnics. Take some time to teach your kids about our military traditions. Teach them to say thank you to the grizzled VietNam vet you pass in the store. Teach them that there are those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the last century so that their moms and dads could live in peace and raise them, knowing that there are wolves guarding the gates.

But above all, remember the fallen this weekend. Remember those who have served. Their names might have been lost in the sands of time, but their sacrifice has not been.

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For that matter, just put them on for a while before you condemn our soldiers. Twitter is all abuzz today about the killing of two journalists by pilots in 2007. The incident is not new. We’ve known about the death of those Reuters reporters since it happened. It was also mentioned in Finkel’s The Good Soldiers.

It is unfortunate that innocents are killed in war. It is tragic when our soldiers turn to rape and murder like in the Stephen Green case from Mahmoudiya.

This incident in July 2007 was not another Mahmoudiya. It was not another Haditha. This was combat pilots in the air, providing air support soldiers on the ground during the surge. They believed the men in their sites were a threat, if not to them, then to the soldiers they were defending.
I have not flown in the cockpit of an Apache. I have not walked the streets during the surge.

But I have deployed and I do know the suspicion, the stress and the judgment calls that are made in battle cannot be second guessed by Monday morning quarter backs who have never worn the boots, let alone walked a mile in combat in them.

I watched the video.

Yes, we dehumanize the enemy. Yes, we make crude jokes about the people around us. Yes, we use black humor to get through what is arguably the darkest situation you can put a human being in. Killing another human being is not easy and it is not nice and the men and women who have gone to war come back changed forever. How each soldier copes with what they have done during war is not for us to judge.

As an Army, we do our bests to fight within the laws of war. Most of our soldiers go out with the intention of coming back. What they have to do to accomplish that, to bring their buddies home is not for those who have never served to question.

Soldiers come home and question what they’ve done during war. When battle is over and you’re back in the States, you have time to really think about what you’ve done. You can not change it. As an Army, we train by putting our soldiers in these situations before they deploy. We train to try and avoid things like this where innocents were killed. We conduct AARs to learn what we can do better. But you don’t get a do over. Once you pull that trigger, it’s an irrevocable choice.

It is unfortunate that these reporters were mistaken for insurgents. Was it a reasonable mistake? Yes. Because insurgents had decoyed themselves as media, as medics, as women in order to get closer to our soldiers. We do our best not to violate the laws of war. The same cannot be said about the enemy, who blatantly use mosques, schools and hospitals as staging areas for their weapons caches. And yet, we condemn our soldiers when we put them in impossible situations.

Those pilots made the best decision they could. The fact that later reports were different does not surprise me. An initial assessment of what’s going on often changes when the fog clears and people have time to really sift through what happened. I’ve stood in the TOC and listened to initial reports only to read later that what originally came through was not, indeed what happened. Does that mean someone lied? No, it doesn’t.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again until I’m blue in the face. Don’t you dare condemn us as dishonorable until you have worn the uniform and gone through combat. Each individual is responsible for his or her actions, even in a time of war. But war means death and destruction and unfortunately, innocents are caught in that.

War is not pretty. It never has been. So don’t pretend to sit there and say how horrible these pilots were because they were making wise ass remarks and smarting off. They were in combat and they were mentally in a place that allowed them to take another human life in defense of their brothers, under the orders of a nation that sent them there.

If they are to be judged, let it be by their peers. Men and women who have sat in that cockpit, who have flown in combat and who have had to make the same decisions they have. Those are their peers. Not some media group leaking classified information in the name of transparency when all they want to do is find another excuse to complain about Iraq and in doing so, paint the actions of our soldiers as murderers and thugs.

True atrocities have taken place in the conduct of this war.
This is not one of them.

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If you’ve never had to really consider what you’d take on a desert island with you, you’ve never deployed. Last year while I was in Iraq, there was nothing I loved more than getting care packages full of books (except when they had books, coffee and chocolate in them). I had incredible support from the RWA community and so it’s time to pass along a great message.

Author Laura Griffin was one author who spent the time to trudge to the post office, stand in line and send me all of the above with one added benefit: she sent me ARCs of her two books that came out last year: Untraceable and RITA nominated Whisper of Warning. So without delay, here’s Laura, asking for support on books for soldiers!

What’s better than chocolate? According to a friend of mine who just spent a year deployed overseas, a good book.

As a civilian, I’d never spent much time thinking about the reading material on most military bases. But I guess it isn’t surprising that it’s geared toward men. When my local Romance Writers of America chapter heard that female soldiers were finding the reading selection a little thin, we started sending care packages containing romance novels, chick lit, mysteries, women’s fiction—basically, whatever we thought women overseas might be missing. The effort continues today with a paperback book drive over on Murder She Writes: www.murdershewrites.com

“These packages mean a tiny space in time where a female soldier can feel like the woman she is rather than the weapon wielding warrior she also is,” says Monica, a soldier who helps get care packages to women in uniform. “These packages let the soldier escape from the sand and stress of a deployment and be somewhere else completely.”

The goal today is 100 books, one for every person who leaves a comment here or on Murder She Writes. Many author friends have generously donated books, and I’ve picked up some paperbacks from the bestseller section of my local book store. They’re all going into the box, along with a few other much-requested goodies, such as blank journals and chocolate!

Please leave a comment and help us reach our goal!

And if you have some books on your hands that you’d like to donate directly, you can contact Monica at: mojo09226@yahoo.com for details.

Laura Griffin started her career in journalism before venturing into the world of writing romantic suspense. Her articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, and her fiction work has garnered awards from writing competitions throughout the country. Laura currently lives in Austin, where she is working on her next romantic suspense novel.

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I haven’t gotten very far into Black Hearts by Jim Frederick. As in I’ve made it through the first section of the first chapter and have read the most horrifying description of what men who wore our uniform did to an Iraqi family.

I don’t want to read this book because I don’t want to look at the men of that platoon and see them as human beings. I don’t want to feel anything other than loathing for the men who committed one of the most notorious war crimes of the Iraq war, if not the worst. I don’t want to know their names and I don’t want to understand what motivated them.

Reading this book is going to take me to a place I don’t want to go. To confront the true horror that walks among us, simply waiting for the right cocktail of things to go wrong.

I don’t know if I can read this book, but at the same time, to turn away is to turn away from the truth of what our men did. Because as much as I want to view them as murderers and monsters, they were ours. Until the day they walked off that COP, they were ours. But the moment they made the choices they made, they ceased being ours. They ceased being human and they joined a class of other for which there is no repentance. You cannot come back from a crime like they committed.

I don’t believe justice has been served by sentencing Steven Green to life in prison. The horror that he inflicted on one Iraqi family is too great for him to sit in a prison cell the rest of his life. The shame he brought to our nation is too great for him to still be breathing.

Reading Black Hearts is going to be one of the hardest books I’ll ever have to read. The other war narratives I have read have had our boys trying to get home. Black Hawk Down. The Long Road Home. These were stories of soldiers. Of ordinary men.

I don’t know that Black Hearts is going to tell me the story of ordinary men. I don’t want to believe that ordinary men could rape and murder a young girl, then set the body on fire and murder her entire family to conceal the crime. How does an ordinary man do something like this, no matter the stress.

It is easy to sit back and call the monsters. I never walked in their shoes. I am comfortable in the thoughts that I would never walk in their shoes. I would never look at a child and dream up the most horrific crime.

In the end, not to read this book would be an act of cowardice on my part. So I’ll read it. But I don’t think it will be easy. And I don’t think I will be able to look in the face of my fellow soldiers with an easy heart again.

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In David Finkle’s The Good Soldiers, Finkle describes a ‘bad news bucket”, an emotional coping cache that, once filled, puts a soldier near the breaking point. According to Finkle, who heard of the idea from Gen Petraus (I believe) soldiers need good news in order to drain the bad news they carry around inside them.

When I read Finkle’s description, I thought, this was it exactly.  There were days in Iraq where I simply couldn’t handle anything else, that I was barely holding on and needed to get away and pull it back together so that I could continue.

I did not expect this once I returned home but apparently, I have my own version of the bad news bucket: the mommy box. I discovered very early on in my deployment that I needed to stay busy in order to keep my mind on the tasks at hand and not sit and mope about my kids. They were happy, they were healthy and they were in my mom’s more than capable hands. I didn’t need to worry.

What I was doing, apparently, was shoving everything inside the mommy box and closing the lid. I shut those emotions down and ignored them.

Except that sometimes, the box got too full. Like on my oldest’s first day of school. My husband and I both agree that they hardest day on this deployment was missing that event. Birthdays we could recreate. Anniversaries, we would ignore. But the first day of school is something we can’t get back and we don’t get a do over.

But having put everything aside for the duration, I fully expected to come home and simply go back to normal. I did not expect to be crying the first weekend back with the kids every day for four days. It seemed like I couldn’t stop. And I also discovered that drinking makes the mommy box even harder to handle.  Apparently, alcohol unleashes the flood of emotions that I’ve still got boxed up inside me.

I can sit back and pretend that everything is fine now that we’re all home, having hauled the entire family back from the diaspora but that would be lying to myself. I’m not fine but I am one hell of a lot better now that I’ve got my family back together. There are still a slew of emotions inside me that I still have to handle and I’m sure they’re going to leak out, a little at a time (because I’m not drinking anymore, but that’s another post).

The mommy box was set in a corner for an entire year. Now, I guess, it’s time to clean it out.

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The news this week was that female veterans have a hard time feeling like they’re part of the team once they get back. An article ran in the Associated Press commented that no one buys the gals a beer in the bar and how they’re not invited out to the bar with the families because the wives of their buddies downrange might not approve.

I can relate and in a sense, I understand. I was at a car dealership this weekend and the manager was talking to my husband about being in Iraq. I felt sidelined by the fact that the manager never once asked if I’d been there, too. He simply assumed I was a spouse and I felt like I’d be going ‘ooh ooh me, too, I was there, too,” if I’d spoken up. It was awkward for me but at the same time, had I not read the AP article, I might not have been even thinking about it.

As a female soldier, I’ve always been on the outside looking in. The males in every unit I’ve been a part of have seen a female first, a soldier second, much as if they see a black female first or a Hispanic male first. I’ve accepted that is simply part of being a women in the military. I’ve also accepted another dirty little secret: the wives at home ALWAYS suspect the female soldiers in their husbands units of trying to sleep with their husbands. Their fear is not unfounded. I get to see what their husbands do during the deployments and when they’re TDY. Some of their husbands are not faithful and that is a disappointment to me.

They are not cheating on their wives with me but that doesn’t matter because I am simply the other to them, a woman who spends time with their husbands who is not them. So I understand the awkwardness that some of the guys have in introducing their teams. I can’t smile too much when I meet the wives or else, I’m suspected. I can’t be too stand offish because then I’m hiding something. It’s a precarious balance, one that means that when I get home, I’ve lost the buddies I’ve hung out with all year, bs’ing with them in the TOC or in the smoke area.

That means that when we come home, I’m on my own. I can’t seek out the friends that I had downrange without causing suspicion and rumor and the last thing that anyone needs is rumor and innuendo. Coming home is hard enough without adding jealousy into the mix. But the blatant, more often than not, assumption that I have not deployed to combat is almost as irritating as having people look at me and see a lieutenant instead of seeing an officer with over 14 years in the service.

People can’t help what they see. They see a female, the mental association is not with being a soldier in our society, just like when folks see a lieutenant, they don’t expect to see someone with experience. I am what people see, at least until they get to know me. I cannot change their expectations of me in that first glance but I can change it once they get to know me.

I feel like I’m doing a ‘me, too’ thing when I correct people if they leave me out. Invariably, they are surprised that I’m in the army because ‘I don’t look like I’m in the army’. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it’s irrelevant. I am in the army. I am a combat veteran. And when they shake my husband’s hand and say welcome home, I feel the lack of recognition.

Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should just accept it as what it is. But it still hurts.

And it still feels wrong, for me and the thousands of women who’ve served with distinction just like our male soldiers.

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I’ve been home a few days now. I’ve been busy. Aside from the dead lizard in the bathroom, which I really enjoyed, I’ve been going non stop. Cleaning the house and getting things back to normal in my home is nearly a full time job. But I did take time for me, because as soon as I get the kids back, I no longer have me time. So I went and spent some time at Bobbi Brown and at the Loft and spent some time trying to learn how to be a girl again.

But here’s the problem. I’ve been a soldier all year long. That’s been who I am, aside from the folks I interact with in the online writing community, I’ve been around soldiers and that’s it.
It was easier.

I very nearly lost my temper today at a girl who was doing her best to cut my hair but despite her efforts was pretty much giving me a hatchet job. You’d think I would be a little more easy going about this, seeing how my hair has had a single style for the entire year. But as the length got shorter and shorter and the sides more and more uneven, I felt this tiny knot of anger growing inside me. She was trying but the harder she tried the worse it got and the bigger the knot grew.

Thankfully a more experienced hair stylist stepped in and salvaged it so I’m not bald.

But really? I was getting violently angry over.

A.

HAIR.

CUT.

WTF? This is something so beyond petty and inconsequential, I’m ashamed to even be writing about it. Everyone who knows me knows I’ve got a temper but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve strived to keep it more in check. This year has been more challenging and I’ll admit, I let it fly more often than I checked it.

But if I’m losing my temper (which I did not, thankfully. I paid and left without comment) about something so absolutely stupid as a bad hair cut, how on earth am I going to handle my kids? I mean, they’re babies. They’re not used to me and I’m not used to them.

So how am I going to handle this?

I’ll tell you, this is the most apprehensive I’ve been in a long time.

This isn’t a two week stint of R&R. This is it. I’m mommy, full time, go starting in less than a week and there’s no one to take the load off for me and my DH. We’re both coming back this time, not him with me adjusting to him coming home.

It’s going to be an interesting journey, that’s for sure.

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I suppose it’s supposed to be a good time. I guess that for folks coming home to families and pets and a lived in house, it is. But for me, it’s strangely silent and empty. Intellectually, I know it’s because the house is empty and I spent the weekend and early hours of the morning cleaning. Shopping was fun, but in a I need this to feel normal again not in a I really want to go shopping kind of way.

I guess in a way, my heart is kind of like my house. Empty. There is a strange disconnect inside me that I don’t know how to fill. I’m hoping when Scott gets home later today that I’ll feel normal again but right now, I’m not sure. I know that life in Iraq is not real life but that life back here is strange and different, too.

I’m not sure which way is up or down. I know, intellectually, that I’m tired and I’m jet lagged and I’m going through a bunch of emotional changes but none of that helps fill what’s inside me. Or rather, what’s not.

So we’ll see what happens as the hours turn into days. I know that time is incredibly slow. I’ve never had an hour take so long in my life. I’m sitting and reading a great book and the time is simply inching by. The house is clean. I have new makeup.

But it still feels like normal will only return when my house is full of kids and dogs and cats and dust bunnies the size of Chihuahuas. Maybe that is normal.
Maybe that is real life.

Right now, I’m simply not sure.

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I finished reading David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers earlier this week. I was impacted. I could visualize the battalion commander and the private equally. I felt their pain when they sat in the chapel and paid tribute to their fallen brothers.

I can’t really describe all the emotions this book brought to the surface. I look at the portraits that Finkel created and I can see those men in the faces of soldiers I see around me every day. I look at the battalion commander in the book as more than anything as a man first, a commander second. I can see the dichotomy in the men and women around me

Mr Finkel created a book that impacted me in a way that a non fiction book rarely does. I could not put this book down. I cringed when the bombs exploded. I could feel the commander’s pain when he visited the wounded.

Though I have been a veteran for the last 14 years, this year, I become a combat veteran. I know the sound of incoming mortar fire. I know the fear of sitting in an intersection as an Iraq vehicle comes down the road and the pressure that tightens around my chest in uncertainty. I know the sound of the M4 going off inside the TOC and the absolute, instant grief of thinking you’ve lost a good friend. I have felt the blast of a thousand pound bomb a quarter mile away. The sound of the air weapons team over head is a comfort, not an annoyance. The thunder of the 50 cal in the test fire pit against my ribs is reassuring. The sounds of my soldiers around me is a sign that we are doing what we are meant to do. Protect and defend.

There is a bond between soldiers but the bond I feel toward the soldiers in my company will never diminish. We will sit back and laugh in the next years as we see each other in the PX or at the PT track. This is my company, these are my soldiers. Every soldier in my brigade can call home because of what my soldiers bring to the mission.

The tradition and the history in the army is a source of comfort. I know now why the veterans seek out the Officer’s Club for one more taste of the brotherhood we share. I know I will be back in Iraq again in two years. Or if not here, Afghanistan. I choose to serve because this is what I know, this is what I do and this is what I love. My journey as a writer has been fulfilling and challenging but nothing compares to the feel of firing a 50 cal for the first time or the confidence of knowing I can hit what I aim at.

Each of us volunteered to be in the army. If we stay, we volunteered to continue to serve. My fellow sisters in arms at the Romvets paved the way to allow me to be a signaler, a combat medic, a military police officer. I serve today because they proved I could.

To all the soldiers who came before me, I thank you.

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I was unable to watch the Hood memorial ceremony from over here in Iraq but I caught a bit of it on TV.

I’ve got to say, having sat through multiple memorials over here, watching the TV for the one at Hood felt a little off. It was so strange seeing the field that I run PT on every morning filled with soldiers, the American flag draped over the entrance of the III Corps Headquarters.

The first memorial I ever went to was for a battalion commander we lost here in combat. It was a horrible shock and a catastrophic event. The CAC, where we conduct all ceremonies here on the FOB, was packed. After all, Lieutenant Colonels don’t usually make the casualty roster. So when my battalion lost a private and the CAC wasn’t nearly as full, it was kind of an eye opener.

I appreciate that the president went and offered his respects at the ceremony. But I wonder, did he ask the family members if they wanted him there? And I’m truly just wondering that. I thought he made a thoughtful decision earlier this year when he left the decision of photographs being taken at Dover up to the families. But I really wonder if anyone asked these families. They are as much a casualty of this war as anyone who died over here this year.

On the other hand, I recognize that the nation needs to mourn with us. That there is a kinship and a support for our soldiers even when we might close ranks and only stand with those who serve with us. Those who know what it feels like to stand on a tarmac and salute a flag draped coffin. That is an experience very few Americans know or understand and the reaction is to keep it to ourselves.

When we put on the uniform, we choose to become symbols of our nation. We give up our rights as individuals and become Soldier. That does not mean our deaths should be impersonal or turned into a symbol. Because each one of those Soldiers being mourned today was a brother or a sister, a son or a daughter, a wife or a husband.

So I’m conflicted. My gut says this is ours but my head says we need to show the world that we’re better than what that bastard tried to make us out to be.

My heart and prayers go out to the families of the victims and to the victims still recovering. Get well, get strong, we still need you.

The person, not the symbol.

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Today my oldest daughter starts kindergarten. Because she’s staying with my mom, my oldest will be going to the same school I went to as a little girl. I remember my first day of school. I wore a little green windbreaker and a sticker with my name on it. I was scared getting on the bus that first day. But I had my mom there, holding my hand and taking pictures and making it into a big adventure for me. My mom is there again, being there because I can’t.
The hardest thing about being gone is that my daughter will remember this. She’ll remember us not being there and she’ll remember my mom being there. Which is really great, because she’ll have a closeness with my mom that I never imagined possible with us being dual military. I’ll remember the day through pictures.
I’m sad about not being there. This is a pretty big milestone for my little girl. Just one more thing that as a military mom, I miss out on. We can talk about sacrifice all day long but at the end of the day, it’s personal. It’s about missed birthdays and weddings. It’s about missed first days of school. It’s about time. I’ll never get this day back. I’ll remember it through this blog post and the pictures my mom sends and the phone call tonight to hear all about it. But today is gone.
I can only make the rest of the days count. I made the choice to be in the army and have a family. Doesn’t make the consequences of that choice easier to deal with. I’ll probably find a way to write about this someday, down the road. When it’s a little less fresh and a little less raw.
I hope today is a happy one for my daughter. She’s going to school with her cousin, also something I never imagined she’d get to do because of our military lives. I’m looking forward to the pictures and hearing her tell us about it.
Most of all, I’m looking forward to being home. To taking her to school myself and meeting her teachers and helping her with her homework. Because those are the days I’ve got to look forward to.
Looking back doesn’t accomplish anything but regret. And regret will spoil those days still to come.
So as you’re walking your kids to school today or sending them off on the school bus, remember there are thousands of moms who aren’t there today to do the same. There are thousands of dads who are expected to act like today is just another day. Enjoy the little things.
They really are what’s important.

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Well, in order to stop focusing on all the things in my unit that I have no influence to change, I’m starting a new book. Actually, I’d written the first few pages about a week ago when I had the start of the idea that will eventually form into the new project but I threw most of that out as it wasn’t quite right.

What’s really interesting about this book is the research that’s going into it. I have to learn a ton about how the mind works and the different aspects of PTSD other than nightmares.

And I’ve chosen to make this book a comparison between the Iraq war and Vietnam. I find it amazing that when I talk to Vietnam vets, their stories are remarkably similar regarding the anti war sentiment. I spoke with an active duty major today whose father was in Vietnam and he made an interesting discovery.

He said that soldiers are still regarded with contempt. He was very blunt when he said that people pay lip service to the ‘soldier as hero’ but when it comes right down to it, soldiers will still be condemned for the actions they are expected to in order to come back home.

His thoughts and the thoughts of other Vet’s who’ve already talked with me really got me thinking about our society. About what’s really important. My mom told me that during Nam, the nightly news was about the body count. Every night was the latest news from Nam. A retired Air Force colonel told me that where she was in Vietnam that the protests were surreal and far away from the realities of the war. Different people, different places and different perspectives.

I find it interesting that an active duty officer would say that the people who praise the soldiers aren’t really supportive. I find it interesting that some civilians who support the troops would never support their children entering into the military. And most interesting is the perception that if you can’t find anything else to do, join the military. Its only an option for people who have no other way out. Hell, that’s how I got here and it was the best decision I ever made.

So learning about my parent’s generation and my parent’s war is very interesting so far. The soundtrack to my WIP is all classic rock, despite working on a contemporary novel. We’ll see where it goes.

I just hope that the people who’ve helped me so far and continue to offer guidance will enjoy the final product.

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I have decided that I’m not overly approachable. Which isn’t really a surprise at this point in my life but over all, people have to know me to want to approach me. Which is always good from a not getting sexually harassed point of view. The brigade XO is convinced that at some point in my career, I’ll have a boss that just won’t quit trying to screw me, literally.

I’m not overly worried about that to be honest. If it wasn’t a problem when I was twenty and hadn’t had any kids, I doubt it’s an issue now that I’m a thirty something mother of two. But I digress

I’m generally shaping up to be one mean bitch of an officer. I had a second lieutenant the other day decide to task someone in my platoon. He did not speak to that sergeant. He did not speak to me. He claims to have spoken to the CO but the CO did not clear it either. When I sent him a gentle reminder that hey, you really shouldn’t annouce these things at meetings but should coordinate with one of us first, he sent me back this shitty little reply that he’d spoke with someone else (not in any way shape or form in my NCO’s food chain).

So I ripped his head off. I explained to said second lieutenant that he was missing the point and that for future reference, if he wishes to task my soldiers he WILL speak with me first. I was not nice about it, especially since this guy is supposedly prior service and should know better. I wouldn’t tolerate that from any of my peers and I’m damn sure not going to tolerate it because this guy is afraid to talk to me.

Some people are not cut out for the army. I’m of the mind set that if you want to be in the army, first off, it’s a privilege, not a right. Second, you better get some thick skin and grow a pair because we are a war time army. Combat veterans do not have the time nor the disposition to listen to someone whine about having their feelings hurt. Maybe it’s just me but I’ve come up in the army that if you task someone, you task them through their leadership. I’m just pointing that out. And I’ve been bad about this in the past too and when corrected, I make sure I don’t do it again.

It was meant to be a teaching point, not an ass chewing but unfortunately, it turned into an ass chewing. So we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

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It’s been a super exciting week for me. I had my first interview over on Colleen Thompson’s Boxing The Octopus blog, which was super cool. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and said hi and a huge thank you to Colleen for having me on.
Then I had my first blog as part of the Mom Writers’ Literary Magazine Blog team. Which was also super fun and neat. Here I am, a diaspora mommy and I’m writing about being a mom. But it’s fun because I’m able to share my experiences with other moms.
Finally, I’m settling back into the writing groove. Being on dayshift keeps me busy so that when I do finally find time to sit down at my Mac, I’m actually writing, not screwing off. Night shift was incredibly productive but I was having a really hard time getting back into writing being back in Iraq. Day shift has provided the kick in the pants to get me going and I passed the halfway mark in my WIP. The momentum has returned, and I for one am relieved!
Have a great weekend!

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Well, it’s been a week since I left my kiddos and I’ve got to say, settling in has been depressingly easy. It’s as though the last two weeks of leave have been nothing but a blur. I wonder how the kids are doing. I’ve tried to call but Mom has been keeping them busy to keep their minds occupied, which is a good thing.

For myself, I slept a lot, trying to get back on the right time. Jet lag hasn’t been nearly as bad for me as it has been for my husband, who’s on day shift. But, if by jet lag, you mean the normal insomnia hasn’t hit, then you’d be right. It’s truly funny that I have more time for a shower and shaving my legs in Iraq than I do in the States. You wouldn’t think that being a soldier takes less work than being a mom but in my case, it seems to be true.

Slipping back into the writing thing has been tougher than I thought it would be, until the internet went down and I was forced to stare at my computer screen. Putting on some new tunes by a favorite band and digging into revisions and before I knew it, I’d crossed over the thousand word threshold. Not a lot for me, but better than nothing considering I haven’t written anything for the last month.

And the other exciting news I have to share is that I’m now part of the Mom’s Writer Literary Magazine team. You might have seen the announcement on my website, but I’ll be blogging with the gals over there as well. My first blog is due on 10 July, so I’ll be sure to post a link to it then. In the meantime, I’ve got to come up with something profound to say in my column titled “Wearing Mommy’s Combat Boots”.

All in all, it’s been all to easy to slip back into the routine. I guess I expected things to change but nothing has. We’re still here. It’s still hot and dirty and people are worried about the wrong things.

Business as usual, I guess.

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I’m sitting in JFK, waiting for my ungodly long layover to be over with. I’ve got internet and Starbucks (after an obscenely long wait and rude service) and I should be in a writer’s paradise, right? I mean, after all, I haven’t written anything on my WIP in two weeks and I’ve really only started thinking about my writing career the last few days to take my mind off leaving my kids once again.
So I should be thrilled, right? Peace and quiet. Chilling and writing?
Yeah, not so much.
My heart hurts. My youngest was up this morning at three when I was getting dressed (there was a lobster that was going to bite her) and she asked me to ‘nuggle with her. Each time I thought she was asleep and I’d try to extricate myself from her embrace, she’d tighten her arms around my neck. It just about killed me. My oldest didn’t wake up, but it was a close thing (you can hear a bug walking on Mom’s floor).
Finally made it out of the house for my brother to take us to Bangor Airport (the troop greeters were there, which is awesome). Did fine until a little guy on our flight was screaming. Most passengers were upset because the kid was crying. It worked me over pretty good because all I could imagine was my daughters getting themselves all worked up looking for Mommy and Daddy today.
God this sucks. I keep telling myself that it’s worth it to give up a year of my life to provide for my kids and in 18 years when my daughters have both of their college educations paid for that it will be worth it.
Right now, that’s a pretty cold comfort.

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As we’re getting ready to go, the normalcy of everything is striking. To include the urge to publicly pull a Kate and spank my kid. Surely not, you must think. What kind of parent is leaving for another five months to a combat zone loses her patience within the last twenty four hours of getting ready to go?

Me.

Initially, the girls were being fine. Just laughing and having a good time. But then the touching and the grabbing and the I wants kept going and going and going. They were like two little energizer bunnies and it stopped being funny after we sat in Dick’s Sporting Goods waiting for Daddy to pick out some fishing equipment (this takes longer than me in Saks on any day of the week, trust me on this one).

When they refused to stand still any longer, I was that crazy mom carrying one kid out of Sears under my arm and pulling the other one behind him.

They say kids acting out prior to parents deploying is normal. I’ve heard from other spouses that in the days before a deployment, the sniping and the bickering get to the point where both are relieved when the plane finally lifts off. The kids have both done something similar today and while at the moment, I would have been glad to get on a plane, that feeling only lasted about a second before the guilt started.

I told my husband that I felt bad for losing my patience with the kids. He said he understood but that it was more important for him to have fun before he left than to make them behave. Maybe he’s on to something. Maybe he’s not. But either way it goes, one of my precious fifteen days was spent arguing with my kids. I can’t get this day back but tonight at bedtime, I talked to my girls and asked that we try to make tomorrow as good as possible before we left.

So we’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck.

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The worst Night Ever

So we’re back at Grammy’s now and the girls are settled right back in. Leave has actually gone very well. The girls have had a blast and I for one, have been focused on letting go of rigid parenting (like normal bedtimes) and just enjoying my time with the girls. For the most part, the kids have done a fantastic job adjusting and slipping back into family mode

Or so I thought.

Tonight, mommy tried to get an hour of mommy time to visit with her long time high school friend. I figured I’d been nothing but Mommy from the minute I walked through the door and I had gladly enjoyed every single minute. But I also figured that being back at Grammy’s, the girls would relax a little and be a little less clingy.

Boy was that a mistake. Within a few minutes of me not being in the room, both girls were crying and screaming. By the time they’d cried it out, their little eyes were all puffy and red and I’ve won the worst parent in the world award.

My oldest wrapped her arms around my neck and said Mommy, things aren’t going to be the same without you here. Then it dawned on me. While we were in Delaware, the girls were having fun and pretending that we really were a family again. Now that we’re back at Grammy’s and not heading back to Texas, reality has struck both of them like the 18 wheeler Grammy drives: Mommy and Daddy are leaving again. Time is such an adult concept that my kids don’t have any way of really counting down other than to look forward to winter and some time around Christmas for us coming home.

It really busted me up tonight taking even that small amount of time from them because every minute is so precious. In the long run, I know that when we get back to Texas, my kids are going to have an adjustment period and life will take a little longer to slip back into whatever normal is for our family. But for now, Mommy’s going to give them their bed time and whatever other time they want.

I’ve got three days left and it’s not nearly long enough.

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We stopped in Ireland on the way home from Iraq. I walked around the airport, simply enjoying being back in civilization. Coffee and bars and duty free shopping. What’s funny is that the people around us looked at us like we were a spectacle. One lady asked us where we were coming from and where we were going. She was incredibly nice, her accent gentle and lilting. Another gentleman, we’re pretty sure he was American stopped and shook our hand and said thank you.
But all in all, Ireland was just a comma in my journey back to my kids. I saw a lady walking around the airprt with her two little girls. Both blond, both young. The little one was tiny and adorable. It’s funny how watching a small child drag a rolling suitcase will inspire tears in random adults but it did. The kids were so adorable and a longing I cannot fully describe began burning in my chest. When people say their hearts ache, do you know what they mean? The anticipation wraps around me and brings tears to my eyes.
Just a few more hours and I’ll be home. I’m not even there yet but the thought of coming back to Iraq is breaking my heart. So I do what I always do. I shut it down and turn it off and cling to the anticipation of seeing my babies. Of the fights and the hugs and the kisses and the laughter. My husband and I wonder if the cats are going to beat up the kids. If our recently adopted horse (aka Lily, the 100 pound yellow lab refugee who joined our family from a rescue shelter) is going to remember us. Have our cats gone feral living with my brother in law?
And what about the kids? Will they understand that mommy and daddy have to go again? Will they be angry and lash out, destroying their rooms and the story books I’ve made for them? Will they kick the dog because they don’ t know what to do with the hurt inside of them?
All I know is that our choice has been made and our kids have to live with the impact of our choices. I hope and pray that it’s the right choice and that in the long run, the girls will be okay and that in a few more months we’ll be a family again.
Notions of patriotism seem kind of far off when your daughter is wailing into the phone that she wants to go home. I hope she understands someday. Because hope and prayer are about all I’ve got to cling to.

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