Jessica Scott

Last year for Mothers Day, I was in Iraq. I remember it being a day of everyone saying “Happy Mother’s Day” when all I wanted to do was ignore the fact that I was even a mom. See, I’m an avoider. I avoid things that choke me up when I talk about them and the card my mom had sent me from my then four year old just about killed me. Being reminded all day that I was away from the one thing I needed to be near was simply brutal.

Last year, all I wanted was to be able to wrap my arms around my kids and hear their little voices say “I wuv oo”. The longing in me to go home was intense, so much so that I had to shut it down or else I would simply cease to function.

This year, becoming mommy again has had its own challenges. There has been much crying and screaming and gnashing of the teeth. There have been lots of ‘you’re not my friend’ any more as well as “I want Grammy’s” and there have been days when I seriously considered walking away from the military because reuniting was too damn difficult on all counts.

This year, I’m taking it one day at a time, just like last year. This year, I’m trying to smile when my kids drive me nuts, to be more patient and to be a better mom because the struggles with coming home have been so intense.

This year, work has been a refuge. It has been the place I go to so that I can still feel like a productive member of society rather than a freaked out version of Freddy Krueger’s mom.

But between last year and this year, one thing has not changed. I still have the best mom. Last year, she went through mother’s day taking care of my kids. Of having to listen to not only her grandkids cry but her daughter as well. This year, she’s gotten to listen to both again, but this time, she’s in Maine and we’re in Texas and just like me last year, all she wants to do is wrap her arms around my girls and make the hurt stop.

Reuniting has not been easy on anyone, but the fact that I’ve got a great mom behind me made last year easier. This year, just knowing that talking to her gives my kids a sense of security helps.

So I’m reposting last year’s Mother’s Day post. Just because it’s still true today.

Happy Mothers Day everyone. Today is one of those days I’m wanting to sleep through, b/ c if I don’t I’m liable to spend an inordinate amount of it crying.
But I have to say there are some great moms out there, but I’ve got one of the best. Not only did she take my two heathen kids for us for a year, but she’s doing a damn fine job raising them ( trust me, my oldest could piss off the pope). I’m able to be here in Iraq and do my job b/c my mom is taking care of business back home.
Thanks, Mom for being a great mom and an even better Grammy!
I love you.

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The post I wrote first and is turning out to be the most contentious one yet is up over at PBS POV Regarding War.

I encourage you to read the comments and leave one, whether you agree or disagree. I think the whole debate on women and war is fascinating and intriguing, more so because I look at how people outside the military view us who are in today versus how we see ourselves.

Please, stop by and read some of the posts, as well as my piece on sexual assault and military women.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/regardingwar/conversations/women-and-war/sex-and-the-military-woman-female-soldiers-are-not-just-victims.php

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So a week ago I recieved an invitation to participate in PBS POV Regarding War blog. I started shaking, I was so excited. I mean, it’s a huge deal. This is PBS. So yeah, I’m still a little awestruck.

My first thought was oh, shit, now I HAVE to make sure my unit knows about this. Little did I know everything that was going to belong to this process. First stop was my company commander. I’d sent him the two pieces I’d submitted to the NY Times, but now that this was going to be an ongoing project instead of random submissions, I really needed to make sure my unit knew I was playing the public swimming pool. Second stop was to the battalion commander. He thought it was a great idea and I was pleasantly surprised to discover we actually had some of the same thoughts on various topics, such as gays in the military and women in combat.

Stop number 3 (and remember all of this is taking place at 1600 on a Tuesday) was to my brigade PAO. Who wasn’t there. On my way out of the office, I ran into the deputy brigade commander, who thought I looked a little more frazzled than usual. I explained what was going on and he pointed me to the legal office.

Because apparently, not only do I need to have PAO review stuff, which I knew, I did not realize I was stepping into fuzzy ethics. See, apparently, there are rules about what soldiers can do to make money and with the small honorarium that PBS was going to pay (for those of you that don’t know, an honorarium is a small fee for participating in a project, a token, if you will) I’d stepped into the confusing landscape of the Joint Federal Ethics Regulation. Good times.

The ultimate decision was reached that yes, I could participate in the blog but would have to forego the honorarium. The good folks at PBS had no issues with that clause at all. Also, I was told I had to ensure that while we could tell folks I was in the army, I could not use any pictures of me in uniform, nor could I use my title. Basically, there could be nothing to imply that my words represented offical policy.

And with that, we’re off. I’ve submitted my intro and my 2nd post to PAO for approval and am working on the 3rd post. I’m excited to be part of this project because we’ll be discussing women at war, which is something that, even though I might not have been out running the streets, I’ve got a pretty strong recent experience with.

So I’m thrilled and nervous as hell because my brigade commander is going to be reading everything I submit, which is terrifying. He’s a little intense, to say the least.

And we’re off. Wish me luck as the story unfolds!

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I’m going to respond to this article, paragraph by paragraph and do my best to keep the emotion out of my response. My responses to each paragraph are offset. Here is the original link to the post http://www.kstatecollegian.com/mobile/opinion/enlisted-women-should-be-required-to-take-birth-control-1.2135616

Enlisted women should be required to take birth control

By Karen Ingram

Hannah Loftus

Let me tell you a story about two former soldiers I know.

The first one is a tiny thing, four inches shorter than me, but she did two tours in Iraq, and she is one of the toughest human beings I know.

The second one was sent to Afghanistan, and I could tell by the way she moaned about how she didn’t want to go that she would not be gone long. Sure enough, she returned within a couple of months, pregnant.

These women are depictions of women across the service. I do not deny that there are women out there who do get pregnant to get out of deployment, just like there are men who come up with excuses to get out of deployment. Contrary to this author’s belief, men have a myriad of excuses not to deploy, from faking PTSD to alcohol and drug abuse to financial and family problems. Each individual command determines who deploys and who doesn’t based of individual reasons.

A number of women soldiers who get deployed to places like Iraq or Afghanistan get sent home early because they become pregnant … while they’re over there.

Again, true. Women do get pregnant in the combat zone but where are your numbers? I can tell you in my brigade, there were less than 10 women sent home from the combat zone last year. In a force of nearly 4000, we’re talking about 10 soldiers. There were significantly more men sent home from the fight and not for injuries.

Women are necessary in the military. For example, when patting down suspects to check for weapons, they need women to pat down the women. When a large percentage of the women soldiers get knocked up and sent home early, this creates a negative impact on the rest of the soldiers. In response to this problem, Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo issued an order on Nov. 4 stating that any soldier involved in a war-time pregnancy, male or female, could be subject to court martial. As of yet, this rule has not been enforced, but it’s still made many people cry foul.

I absolute agree that all soldiers are critical to the fight, however, you state that a ‘large percentage’ of females get knocked up and sent home early. Where are your numbers to indicate that a large percentage of females are sent home early. Can you point to specific facts to back your statement up? Because I would be interested in seeing the numbers myself.

Four Democratic Senators, all of them women, wrote a letter to Cucolo asking him to rescind that order on Dec. 22, saying, “We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished for conceiving a child.”

Talk about missing the point. These women are not getting pregnant while on home soil with plenty of time to spare before deployment; they are using pregnancy as an excuse to neglect their duties as soldiers in war zones. Either right before they are deployed, or as soon as they set foot over there, they sleep around to intentionally get pregnant so they can leave early. Many capable women soldiers, such as the one I mentioned earlier, face prejudice and ridicule from men because these deserters are giving women soldiers a bad name.

When, on home soil, is a good time to get pregnant? Unless you get pregnant the day you get home from deployment, you will still miss out on some of the next deployment when you have a baby. In most combat brigades, the average time at home station is 12 months and during that twelve months, these brigades are resetting and training for the next deployment. In my brigade, for example, we had exercises from July straight through until October, when we loaded our equipment on the trains for Iraq. So you state there is plenty of time for females to have babies, but the operational tempo in active duty combat brigades simply doesn’t provide for the kind of time you suggest is available.

The fact is, even in the 90s, when the OPTEMPO was significantly less than it is today, women were given a hard time for having children. In my nearly fifteen years experience, there has never been a good time in the army to have babies. Punishing women is not the answer.

And who could blame the men for being angry for women using pregnancy as an excuse to desert their duties? That isn’t fair. The men have no such cop-out available to them unless they desert. Why shouldn’t women deserters be punished, too?

Men have lots of reasons to get out of deployment. In fact, when commanders are looking at personnel, they fully expect that 10% of the total force available will not deploy. That number is even greater now because of the strain on the force due to back to back deployments.

If women wish to join the military, they must be just as willing to go to war for their country as any man. Women cannot expect to have equal rights with men if they use reproduction as an excuse to get out of their duties. Women can join the military and have children, but when they are in combat zones, the only thing they should be doing is their job as soldiers. Separate but equal is not equal.

You state that separate but equal is not equal. I agree with you. However, having nearly 15 years in the active duty army, I can tell you that most of our soldiers are willing to deploy, male and female. People that are not willing to deploy simply get out of the military and my response to them is thank you for serving. But you miss a key point: every unit will have a rear detachment because there will always be soldiers who cannot deploy. Because a female chooses to have a baby does not mean she cannot contribute to the war effort in some way, just as men who are on rear detachment support the warfighters downrange.

I agree with you one hundred percent, however, when you state that when in a combat zone, the only thing they should be doing is soldiering. In Utopia, that would be the case but ignoring the fact that when men and women get together, there will always be hormones flying does nothing to address the reality of men and women deploying. Pretending that sex won’t happen is idealistic and unrealistic.

Unfortunately, the older I get, the more realistic and cynical I have become. I realize that no matter how much you try to explain to them that they are doing more harm than good for women’s rights by copping out on the menfolk, they won’t listen. They’ll cry and moan about their rights to breed, totally neglecting the fact that they are, first and foremost, soldiers.

You paint every single female soldier with the brush of coping out. Guess what? Thousands and thousands of women have deployed, many multiple times. Some of us have had babies and then deployed. You miss the point when you say that we are all coping out by wanting to be able to have families. And women’s rights is about the ability to choose, not about the ability to be just like a man. If nothing else, the fact that women can have children and still serve on active duty is major step forward for women’s rights, not the other way around. Providing role models for young women and showing them they can do anything and still have a family is a stronger example than punishing women for having babies. The punishment factor is another way that people who are against women’s rights continue to push women out of the public domain. Finding a way to balance the two is significantly better than saying you as a woman can only do one or the other.

Last time I checked, a soldier’s body was not his or her own. Legally, it’s government property, which means the government dictates to a soldier what they can and cannot do with his or her body. While this policy has resulted in some very unfortunate incidents, such as the Edgewood experiments, it is supposed to ensure that soldiers are regulated so they can perform their duties as needed.

So Depo has no side effects? No weight gain that the female would be punished for, no emotional side effects? The army should be able to inject me with whatever they see fit? In that case, let’s sign up a brigade for experimental vaccines against AIDS. Or the flu. Force protection is not the same thing as forced injections.

So, since I can’t talk sense into the people who signed up for the job, I have a suggestion for their boss instead: Change the policy. Instead of punishing soldiers for war-zone pregnancy, make it mandatory for all women soldiers to be on birth control. And not just any birth control; make sure it’s Depo-Provera, a type of birth control given by injection. If we can’t rely on women soldiers to keep their pants on, we can’t rely on them to take a pill every day, now can we? Not to mention the fact that, for the legitimate women soldiers, being in a combat zone isn’t the best place to remember to take a pill every single day. The Depo-Provera shot, on the other hand, is only needed once every three months. Every soldier is required to get a dozen shots before they go over there anyway, so just add this to their round of inoculations. Problem solved.

The army does not have the right to tell me when I can or cannot have a family. They do not do that to male soldiers, ergo they cannot do that for female soldiers. I just returned from a combat zone where I was deployed with my husband. Guess what? I remembered to take my pill every single day. For you to break female soldiers down into legitimate and not-legitimate soldiers simply shows that you have no idea how the military works. You are simply attacking women who wish to have families and still serve their country. You uphold negative stereotypes of women, that every woman who gets pregnant is doing so to get out of a deployment and that simply is untrue. Some women simply wish to have a family. You also state that enlisted women should be required to take Depo. What about officers? Should they? Or do you even know the difference between officers and enlisted?

I have much respect for all soldiers. I come from a military family myself. If some women demand to be treated as equally as the men, but use excuses to cop out of doing their duty, I say we beat them to the punch and prevent them from doing so by making Depo-Provera mandatory while they are stationed in combat zones. If the chances of a woman soldier becoming pregnant while in combat were basically eliminated by doing so, their fellow soldiers might feel they can count on them more. A soldier in combat has only one duty, and that is to be a soldier, no matter which gender.

I completely disagree with you here and I don’t believe you have respect for all soldiers. The tone of your piece is completely disrespectful toward female soldiers en masse and shows a lack of respect for our military in general. Our soldiers are part of a team, irrespective of gender. Females serving in units are respected and serve with dignity. This war has proven that women are capable of serving in combat with distinction. You state that separate but equal is not equal but targeting women with birth control when you do not target males with the same thing is not equal. Also, what about the men who are sleeping with women over there? Are they blameless? Should they be forced to be injected with something as punishment for getting these women pregnant.

I have no problem discussing the way forward for females to serve in the military and I do not deny that some women do get pregnant to get out of service. But to state that all women do so is a disservice and clouds the discussion with baseless accusations. You present no facts in your piece, nor do you back up any of your statements with numbers. You act like Depo is the answer for this and it simply is not. The army is actually loathe to give out Depo as the birth control of choice because of the myriad of side effects, some of which can be severe.

I welcome the discussion about women in the military but saying we are all tramps who can’t be trusted to keep our legs closed is not the way to go about leading the conversation.

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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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10. She’s a people person.

9. Her children must be so well polite and well mannered.

8. You have to guess what she’s thinking.

7. Her body language is confused, I can’t tell if she’s angry or happy.

6. She’s so cute and flirty.

5. She really doesn’t get her point across well.

4. She’s too much of a girly girl to be in the army.

3. She doesn’t tell me when I’m screwing up, she’s kind of vague and indirect.

2. She’s so polite, she never swears or loses her temper.

1. She’s so nice.

That is all…

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So here’s something I bet you’ll never see coming. There are people over here that I can’t stand. In my previous position, I had two key leaders, both females who were unable to perform their duties. One of those individuals told anyone who would listen that I simply didn’t like her and that I was targeting her and ‘being mean’. Yes those words were used (we’re in the ARMY people, but that’s another discussion).

Anyway, both of said individuals retained their jobs, despite their complete incompetence and despite the fact that their failure to perform negatively impacted an entire brigade’s ability to communicate. When I look at the situation, I see two soldiers who failed to perform. What my seniors see is that they’ve got a female being mean to two other females.

Are you kidding me? I wish.

How on earth does this relate to writing? It’s actually exceptionally applicable because guess who gets blamed for all most all wrongs in a romance novel? If you said the heroine, you’d be right on the money. So here’s my issue: If as a female officer, I am harder on other female soldiers, regardless of rank, does that impact how I view female characters in movies? Absolutely. The other interesting fact is that when women critique other people’s writing, they are harder on women than they are on male authors.

So what do we do about it? In real life, should we be ‘nicer’ to other women simply because our male counterparts refuse to hold them to the same standard that they hold men to? Should we cut our heroine’s some slack because maybe we can’t really say how we’d react in the same situation or maybe because she does something we completely wouldn’t do in the same situation?

I think it should be a little bit of both. Maybe, in real life, we should spend more time developing our fellow women. In both instances, I attempted to but then became over come by events. Not an excuse, a fact. Then both people stopped working for me, limiting my influence even further. A wonderful example of women supporting and mentoring others is my home RWA chapter in Austin. All one has to do is post a question and folks will be jumping up with the answer and trying to help. There are wonderful mentors in the group, all willing to offer advice from how they got through a similar situation.

In writing, all I can do is identify what drives my heroine and have her act true to her character. With any kind of luck, I’ll have portrayed the emotional stakes correctly so my readers will understand where she’s coming from.

The real world is always more difficult to get right than fiction. In fiction, I control what my characters do. But if I take too much control, I risk mixing up my heroine’s motivation and that, more than anything, will have readers throwing books at the walls

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Okay, when I screw up, I think I’m pretty good at admitting it. That’s part of being an officer that I remember from training my lieutenants as a young staff sergeant and sergeant first class. Own up. Your soldiers will respect you more and you’ll sleep better at night.

So I can’t help it if someone is too stupid to realize that they’re too stupid for their current job. I know I’m being blunt, but come on, do you really expect anything less from me at this point?

So what I really really want to know is why some people don’t get fired? Is it their ability to keep six pounds of makeup from melting off their face in 112 degree heat? Why is it that the most incompetent people get to keep their jobs? We’re 7 months in at this point! Either you’re going to learn your job or your not. How many chances do people get?

And here’s what really sets me off about the whole darn situation. If I screw up, my boss will go over my ass with a wire brush. And then pour alcohol on it. So why am I held to account when others aren’t? Either hold us all to the same standard or no standard.

The argument I hear is well, they volunteer to be here and serve during war. I’d volunteer to be in the Infantry, doesn’t mean I belong there. Some jobs require technical skills that some people just won’t master. Ever. So why continue to subject an entire brigade combat team to less than the best? Hell, I’ll take mediocre at this point. Even lazy.

I’m just really tired of incompetent.

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We in the army like to pretend we don’t have a problem with men and women working together. We also like to pretend that a group of young twenty something co-eds, a stressful, isolated environment and boredom WON’T lead to compromising positions (no pun intended). We also like to pretend that civilian folks over here have no impact whatsoever on the military folks and female civilian contractors can where whatever they want without getting ‘sexually harassed.’

So, here’s my sarcastic take on how to pretty much guarantee you’re going to get sexually harassed in Iraq and drag the rest of us down with us.  At the very least, you will be a joke among your male counterparts and will struggle to be taken seriously. Ever again.

10. Wear makeup. Not a little I just want to feel like a girl eyeliner but I’m talking foundation, blush, concealer, lip liner and oh, about sixteen coats of mascara. This will guarantee you turn heads in the chowhall.

9. Smell good. Not just hey, that wasn’t the smell of a Ranger who hasn’t showered in six days, light residue from shower gel. I’m talking layer upon layer of lotion, body spray and what the hell, a little perfume, too.

8. Uniforms that leave nothing to the imagination. The Army Combat Uniform aka ACU, is meant to be loose. As in we can’t see the crack of your ass loose. If you have to peel that sucker off to go to the latrine, odds are, it’s too tight. Don’t complain when guys are checking out your ass.

7. Do your hair. I don’t mean pull it back and keep it out of the way. I mean spend at least 45 minutes every morning blow drying, styling, and pinning your hair in the latest prom do that is in no way appropriate for a combat zone.

6. Flirty body language. When you walk like your hips are on a swivel, guys are going to notice. Also take note of the too close stance, the casual touching and the preening. 

5. Inappropriate use of anything near your mouth. Ladies, you’re in a combat zone. Don’t suck on lolli pops, pen caps or the end of your sunglasses unless you want to be some random guy’s wack off fantasy.

4. Wear a low cut t-shirt in the gym with sparkly words on your boobs. You wanted guys to look. They’re looking. Congratulations, you just got half a Ranger regiment horny.

3. Dancing in the toc. This should go without saying but getting any good news in the TOC (tactical operations center) and doing a booty shake, happy dance or in any way drawing attention to yourself is a bad idea.

2. Push up bras. Yes, guys can tell you’re wearing them under your uniform. If you’re wearing PTs and a  push up bra, you might as well be naked. And even if you aren’t wearing them, you might be thought of as wearing them. 

1. Taking your wedding band off to reveal a paler strip of skin where the band used to go. Yes. this happens. And most guys are going to be perfectly happy to accept whatever explanation you offer as to why you’re not wearing it. If you weren’t divorced before, you will be shortly.

These are just a few things that I’ve observed around the FOB that we as women and female soldiers tend to do to draw attention to ourselves. If you want it, good for you but please remember that there are those of us who would like to go to the gym and not feel like we’re at some guy’s private pants party. For every one of you that likes the attention, there are a dozen or so more of us who just want to be a soldier and do our jobs.

So please remember, we’re all in this together and the next time you want to set the makeup gun to whore in 110 degree heat, just think about how that affects your sisters around you.

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Happy Mothers Day everyone. Today is one of those days I’m wanting to sleep through, b/ c if I don’t I’m liable to spend an inordinate amount of it crying.
But I have to say there are some great moms out there, but I’ve got one of the best. Not only did she take my two heathen kids for us for a year, but she’s doing a damn fine job raising them ( trust me, my oldest could piss off the pope). I’m able to be here in Iraq and do my job b/c my mom is taking care of business back home.
Thanks, Mom for being a great mom and an even better Grammy!
I love you.

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