Veterans Day
The woman in the news story had a 6-month-old baby and was getting ready to deploy for a year. Her sister was going to care for her baby while she went to war. I was heartbroken. By the time she would, God willing, come home safely, her son would be walking and talking. The image of the soldier holding her chubby, smiling infant is incredibly powerful. Her story is a testament to the sacrifices

Lazy Army Schedule & Horse Names for Cars
"I have tomorrow off," he says. "I'm off work," he texts me at noon. It's nice that he has lots of time off. Sharing a car, on the other hand, makes his chillax work schedule not so chillax for me (not to mention the jealousy...why can't I work a two-hour day?). The Golden Stallion--our '99 Grand Prix--has a cracked radiator and a bummpity transmission (very technical terms). Its days are

Homecoming: The Hardest Part of Deployment
There's something incredibly different about him. I'm sure he thinks the same of me. "That's to be expected," says my sisters, mom, friends. I'm inclined to begin every conversation about his homecoming with the words, "I thought [fill in the blank]." And it doesn't matter what I thought. Not at all. My husband was in Iraq for a year. There's no way to have reasonable expectations. ~*~*~*~*~*~*

Parks Highway and My Acceptance of a Home Without a Husband
Blogger's note: I'm time travelling again. As the snow falls, we're looking forward to a holiday season together. Here's a note from last year shortly after he deployed.Hoisting a humidifier on my shoulder and trudging through a pile snow at 8 a.m. is where I find myself three days after Thanksgiving. The humidifier is something for which I'm extremely thankful. The dry desert air of the frigid

The Feeling: What Two Weeks of "Leave" Really Means
Blogger's Note: Since I can't travel back in time and talk about deployment, here's a post about Thomas' leave. I wrote this to my sister in February. During a year long tour in Iraq the Army is kind enough to give us two weeks together.The feeling is familiar and unique. We're lounging on the couch and I'm avoiding the scratchy feel of his ever-present five o'clock shadow and it happens. "I