It's That Time of Year Again

October, I love fall. I love the smell of it, everything about fall and October always starts fall for me. In 2011 in 29 Palms October was the month that no longer represented fall for me. It represented homecoming from one of the toughest deployments I was ever close to. I say that because as a spouse during this deployment I was all in. One day I was doing the dishes and my husband came home and said, "Hey babe, would you want to be the advisor on the command team?" and I, having no idea what that would mean said, "sure" I really don't want to go in to the deployment that year, if you are interested you can go to the archives and read my blog from 2011. It started in April and it ended in October. But for me and the other spouses that made up the family readiness team of 3/4 during that 7 months our bonds were formed and that time cemented us together forever. Being an advisor during a tough deployment means you are privy to everything, every PCR (Casualty Report), every thing. You are not to talk about them with others because of PII, you are pretty much just walking around with knowledge you can't share and it hurts to know that others in your battalion are hurting and you can't reach out unless they ask for help or you know them personally. I was fortunate enough to know some of our fallen families enough to be able to do whatever I could to help, some of our wounded, but really, what can you do? What words can you say? What is there to make any of that better? All you can do is be there, just be there, some times in silence, not crying, it's not your pain, it belongs to them, it's selfish to make it about you, you have to stay strong, for them..they don't need to comfort you at this time, that isn't their job. I have not one single regret about not one single day, not one single tear shed in my car on the way home from a funeral, from the hospital, alone in my room. But it's always this time in October, this time when they came home, except for those 5 ...those 5 Marines we think about all the time, and those still fighting, those missing limbs and those families, those amazing families with grace unprecedented, every October.

Arrived Alive

Ok so we made it to Camp Pendleton. I was really ready to hate it here. To not be happy. I was so happy at Quantico, I had a great house, a great gym, friends that didn't demand too much time from me but that were there at all the appropriate times and vice versa. My son was there, at TBS and he came by on the weekends and some days during the week. It was really my little slice of heaven on the east coast. Then the Marine Corps, well, the Corps broke it's promise. Our orders clearly stated that we would be there for 2 years, and by my calculations we had only been there a year, sorry Corps.....your math is wrong. I forgot Semper Gumby for a moment, I railed against the broken promise, I acted like a novice Marine Corps spouse that didn't know how often the Corps can do that to you...do what you ask? Put the mission first of course. And so as ordered I begrudgingly helped my husband load up the truck and move to Beverly...well Pendleton but that isn't in the song..so ya.... Ok so we have been here a little over a month, almost two. And I have to say. I love it. Ok so how do you go from fear and loathing to love? You do what every good military wife does.......you bloom where you are planted. I put on my big girl pants, looked out my window of our beautiful condo we are renting.....and there was the beach (normally I HATE the beach) and decided to love it...and you know what. It worked. Attitude is an amazing thing, it can change you, and how you feel about anything and I decided to love it here. Not only for me, but for my family. I will let you in on a little secret. When I am not happy, my husband is miserable, he loves me, and not in a shallow, romance novel way. But in a deep down to his bones kind of way and I will tell you this is a mutual love. If he is not happy I am miserable as well. Thing is he tends to be a very positive person where I linger on the more pessimistic side. So back to the story. I didn't want to make my unhappiness make him miserable so I did what I needed to do to find a way to be happy here. I embraced the beach, our neighborhood and our home. It truly is beautiful here. We live a few blocks from the beach (we live off base) our home is beautiful and we can walk everywhere. It's really been nice. I still yearn for the east coast but this is where my home is now and I am going to be happy. My son is still at TBS, he should pick back up on his training soon. I miss him but he is happy and that makes me happy. I am still in pain over the loss of our Shin. I am dumbstruck at the depth of pain losing him has caused. I just had no idea losing him would be as tough as it was. He was old, he had an amazing life, he was loved and cared for and he was sick. He was losing his ability to breath and he wasn't thriving so it was time, I have no doubt about that. In my life I have lost a sister, my mother and many people I have loved and to put Shins death among the grief I felt at losing them is not lost on me. But it is what it is. My husband told me that I should stop questioning my grief and stop trying to rationalize it. I feel what I feel. I miss him terribly. I find myself crying for him a lot. Not as much as I did but I am still crying. He was with us for 13 1/2 years. He was my only companion when my son left for college and my husband constantly deployed. I spent a lot of time with him and taking long walks. I shared a lot of my fears with him when my husband was deployed, I cried on his soft fur when my son left for college and he always knew when I was sad, he would walk right over to me and put his head in my lap, that was just the kind of dog he was. He didn't just do that for me, he did that for all of us. I hope that he knew that he meant the world to us, I hope he felt half the love he gave in return. I hope that I can be the person he thought I was. I don't know if I can ever get another dog, I don't know if I would ever be able to look at another dog and not think he's not Shin. Jeez even as I type this I am crying. Its true what they say, the only fault in dogs is that they don't live long enough. Ok well that is all I have for now. I really think I need to start blogging more again, I have promised myself to try and I will. I don't think anyone is even reading anymore but that is ok. I will still write, for me, for my family that maybe will read this one day. Have a great day everyone......

Lets Try This Again....I know I said that before ................

I think at this point I may just be writing for myself. That is ok, this blog was started for my own thoughts a few years ago any how so if that is where I am now that is ok. If anyone is still out there reading , thank you for coming back by. I am still on this crazy journey, the ride has changed a bit, the passengers have hopped on and off but still it moves forward. Ok, so where does life find me as of today. Ok as of today, July 5th, 2015 I am sitting aboard Quantico MCB getting ready to head to Camp Pendleton in a few weeks with my husband....yes, after only one year the Marine Corps is sending up back across this great nation once again. So big changes this past year....ok, we left 29 Palms, Greg started and finished Command and Staff College with his Masters in Military Studies. He did very well (I wasn't surprised at all by this) and what was supposed to be a 2 year duty station turned in to a 1 year duty station. I have to say I was not happy about that at all. There are many reasons why, I love it here. I love our house, our neighbors, the gym and the biggest reason of all is because as of May our son is here at TBS (The Basic School) for 6 months. So it took me a few weeks to accept we were leaving and with the help of Michael and Greg I accepted it was for the best, Michael was after all going to try to get stationed in California as well. Well fast forward 7 weeks after Michael started TBS ...... he breaks his foot .... and now he is set back at least 7 weeks in his training. So long story short, things didn't work out the way I had hoped they would but there is really nothing I can do about it and well....SEMPER GUMBY and all that. On s good note, Michael seems to be handling his set back well, he is working in the head shed while he recovers and is looking forward to resuming his training. He was doing very well with his Platoon and was pretty heart broken to have to leave but such is life. I would say the year here in Quantico overall was great, with the exception of what heartbreaking thing. In May we lost our beloved Shin. After 13 1/2 years and all our travels our poor beloved fur child just couldn't continue on our journey with us. It goes without saying that our lives were shattered in a way we didn't understand was possible and we haven't been the same since. Although time has lessened the pain the loss is still with us and we will never forget our boy. There are no words to express to you what he meant to us, what we lost when he left this earth. If there is a heaven I know that he is there and like the saying goes, if there are no dogs in heaven I do not wish to go there. Well I hope to continue writing as I deal with once again leaving our son in a few weeks, it's been so amazing having him close by. I had so wished to be able to be here with him while he continued his journey at TBS .....but our journey leads us to Calif......stay tuned.

Snow Snow Baby

I love the snow. The Marine Corps has taken us many places but mostly to places that do not have snow in the forecast. When we first got orders to Quantico my excitement was not containable, and a large part of that was because of SNOW! So here I am...just about to enter February..and where is the snow??? I mean we have had some dustings but nothing of significance and it's frustrating. I grew up in Pa and I just want the kind of snow we had back in the day. I will just sit here patiently waiting. Hoping and praying for some of that white stuff. PS..this light hearted post is brought to you by the blogger that hammered you all with that depressing post last week. Have a great day everyone!! Let it SNOW!!!!!

Military Wife Random Thoughts...It's the Loss that Hurts

Military Wife…It’s the loss the hurts I read a lot of articles written by military wives. There are times when I relate, a little. There are more often times I feel like I am a stranger in a strange land and I do not relate to most things I read of my “life” as a military wife. I don’t relate to how “hard” it is. Life is hard in general, no matter what your spouse’s profession is. Do we go it alone a lot; yes we do…is that hard? It can be…but really, there are things in life a lot harder. I guess for me being part of this life seems to me a privilege. I get to share this life with my husband; it’s an honor for me. To every day live in the presence of those who decided to serve their country. I try not to dwell too much on the hard parts that to me aren’t all that hard. Everything is of course about perception, perceptions based on each individuals life experiences. Maybe for me it’s not that hard. I came up in life tough, learned to fend for myself early, never expected life to be easy. When I married my husband, he had just stepped foot out of boot camp. When he left for boot camp I wasn’t too sure I would be there when he came back. I knew what this life meant. My father was a Marine, my mother was a young widow when he was cut down in Vietnam at the ripe old age of 25, my mom had two kids, my sister (5) and me, 8 months old. My older sister was also married to a Marine; he was hardly ever around, because even in peacetime, Marines are gone … a lot. When I say it isn’t hard please don’t confuse that with I don’t miss him or worry. I miss everything about him, about us, when he is gone. Always have. I can tell you that there were times I would cry because his absence was felt so deeply that there was not a single person in the entire world that could fill that absence except him. He is my best friend, has been for over 20 years. I tell him everything and vice versa, I am not sure about the term “soul mates” but if such a thing exists surely it is he and I. Do I worry, yes? But that isn’t a one-way street. Ask any Marine how much he worries about his family when he is sitting in the most dangerous piece of property in Afghanistan…. they worry just as much about their families…. this is a fact. So back to what my point was when I began this. Today like a lot of days I started reading stories on military wife blogs, and articles from military spouse magazines, desperately trying to connect to something and as usual it just wasn’t happening. Who are these ladies? I recognize them of course, but more like a long lost cousin I met once at a wedding never to be seen again but certainly recognizable in family photo albums. Then it hit me, I know why I am not connecting…. because no one is talking about what for me…. the single thing that has defined me the most as a military spouse, the hardest… The loss. When was the last time I knew any one old that died? That was in a tragic accident? That had their life changed forever? I couldn’t think of one. But that can’t be true…. As I checked down the list….nope, nope, nope……not one in at least 15 years….. In the years since the wars started, and not just the wars, my husbands time in service we have lost and or witnessed tragedy to our friends countless times. This thought was trigged by yet another loss of a beautiful young woman, a military wife that served in my husbands unit and also as a spouse in the unit I was a FRO. She was killed in a car accident. So young, the mother of 3 small children …gone. And then I stared to think about all the other losses, Marines killed in these wars we knew, Marines wounded and dismembered, Marines killed in accidents, their wives that had tragic life ending accidents while their husbands were deployed that we knew. All of them, all their faces, hit me and I realized all this loss has taken a toll on me. This is what has been hard for me being a military spouse. The single hardest thing. We don’t really talk about that. Does anyone else think about it? Is it hard on other spouses? I don’t know if this is the same in the civilian community, it has been so long that I have been in the civilian community I just don’t know…but I know for the military community this is real, and relevant. And unspoken. I am weary from it. My heart is heavy from it. Maybe that is why everything else seems so petty, and unimportant. I guess what I will continue to do is let those families of those we lost know that their loved ones absence has left a mark on me. That I will do what I can to remember them, so others remember them. I will volunteer when I can to assist our wounded, those still fighting their battles and try to pay back a little with my time that they gave of their blood. I know loss is a part of life, but some experience more then others and our life, this military life seems to experience a lot of young lives lost. So next time we are complaining about something that really isn’t that big of a deal, maybe we should shift our focus and remember how lucky we are to not be counted among those that have gone too soon. To cherish those we have while we have them. To talk about and remember those gone, to celebrate their lives and stay in touch with their families. To offer a hand or reach out to someone that was wounded. To call that Marine that lost his wife and is now a single parent and see how they are doing. I love being a military wife, I have little to complain about. But the loss, that is the hardest. But also what I have learned my greatest lessons from.

I'm BACK.......Is Anyone Still Here?????? (crickets)

Well as the title suggest....I am back. So much has changed since I started my journey and shared on my blog. My son is now a college graduate....and a 2nd Lt in the United States Marine Corps.....see photos below. I stopped writing in my blog when things started getting hairy because of work, if any of you are still around I took the job as the Family Readiness Officer at my husband battalion. More on that to come later but long story short, the job took over almost my entire life. We have since PCS'd to Quantico Va and I am ready to start sharing my 4 year journey from Emptynest, to FRO to back to still empty nest but the mother of a Marine and wife of a Marine. I hope you are all interested in following my story as I share with you all the good, the bad and the ugly and my life moving forward. But for now to share some photos of my sons graduation and commissioning this past May.

Blog Ninjary

Hi Readers,
I am sorry I have been absent for so long. I haven’t actually ignored you all but I have ignored my own blog. I have continued to read your post and have enjoyed doing so in the few minutes I have to do so. My new job (3 months) has been incredibly awarding but also incredibly time consuming. I can say for the first time in a long line of careers reinvented that no matter what the day holds for me I have never once dreaded or not wanted to go in to the office. I love my job, I love the families that I work with and I love 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines. It is my home. It is my workplace, and it is where I feel like I belong. So for all the crazy hours, lack of sleep and never ending checklist....I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
So since my last post not too much has changed except being consumed by my work. My husband has been in and out the door, mostly out. Since the beginning of January he had been home about 32 hours. He is home now for awhile. We are now about 4 months post-deployment. I think things are starting to settle and routines are being re-established. It was a little difficult with him TAD, then on a ship since then, but it’s starting to feel like our “normal” again.
As some of you know my husband was selected to SgtMaj in November. So now we are waiting to find out what our next Marine Unit will be for us. Hopefully in Division and hopefully here at 29. But we will have to wait and see what the needs of the Corps are.
as as usual and hope the needs of the Corps are inline with ours. But when you come in to the Corps (we started this journey together) you know that the needs of the Corps are paramount.
We feel fortunate that my husband was selected, with the draw down a lot of our friends were not so lucky and we will lose some awesome Marines because of it. If you are facing that situation yourself I am sorry. I think it’s unfair, I think it stinks. I think for the last 10 years our servicemen and woman have worked so incredibly hard and for a lot of their reward they are going to be shown the door. We will have to see what this means for our Military but I fear a Clinton era climate and that was not good for anyone.
My son is doing awesome, again feeling so lucky he has his ROTC Scholarship, again a lot of his friends are working super hard in hopes of attaining the same goal will be denied. Heartbreaking for the kids of this nation that want to serve and are willing to work so hard to be able to do it.
Anyhow, just wanted to write something and let you know I am still around, a little on the Ninja side, here but not visible..but saying HI!!!!!

New Job...New Adventure...

Hello blog friends!!
Boy oh boy how things have changed in the last month. First off, it’s been an amazing time. The holidays were amazing, our son was home, my husband was home and we did absolutely nothing! Part of the reason was because I started a new job!!!! Yes, on Dec 15th I started my first day as our battalions Family Readiness Officer. My dream job, a job I never thought would happen since it is a pretty elusive job too most. Not because there aren’t a lot of super candidates, well yes, that is part of it, but it’s just really hard to get a foot in the door. About a year and a half ago I thought maybe one way to actually do that was to volunteer to be our battalions Family Readiness Advisor, and I think it helped a great deal. I was able to see the inner workings of the job I may have missed had I not. Long story short, when our FRO (who I loved and was an amazing mentor) was served with orders via her husband I finally got the chance I was hoping for.
I have now been in the job for about 3 weeks. Luckily over the holidays I was afforded a lot of time to try to figure things out, feel my way around the office and try organize. Needless to say I was left an immaculate office so it didn’t take long to get all my ducks in a row.
So now the work starts. Hubs is leaving for a month for some Senior PME at Quantico and even though I hate he is leaving it will give me time to set up a cot in my office and get to work! Lots of training and lots of communication and hopefully I will be the type of FRO our amazing families deserve. Wish my luck everyone.....I am super excited!

Not So Wordless Wednesday

During this holiday season please take a moment to remember our wounded warriors. I am posting a photo of two of the several Wounded Warriors who are recovering from our last deployment. The courage these young men exhibit makes me want to be a better person. Although these are certainly not the first nor will they be the last, they are our bravest and still fighting their own fight..for recovery. Please do not forget them, please do not turn away from them. Instead of staring please go up and thank them and ask them what happened. I have been told they prefer that to the stares. So to The Darkside Families of our wounded, know we are thinking of you all and we are still here. And of course to our Darkside fallen, we are forever grateful and we will never forget....to all our Wounded and Fallen from every service across this nation...THANK YOU.

Please Read

My friend Mary who lost her husband on our last deployment is getting ready any second to deliver her and Lukes son. This is their third son. Please take a minute to go to her blog and read about what it is like for her to grieve at this time and read how beautifully she expresses something we should all remember...no one knows how it feels to go through this unless you have yourself. She is amazing...I had to share

http://mynewkindofpregnancy.blogspot.com/

Wordless Wednesday. I Miss This Face

Some Good and Surprising News to Share!

Well fellow bloggers. I know I have been off line a bit with my blogging. But as usual I promise I am keeping up with all of you and what you are up too. With homecoming, our trip to Slovenia (I promise to post pics soon) and our ball things have been crazy. Well I forgot I didn’t share some super exciting and unexpected news.
Last month we were up in Kingman preparing for our trip to Europe. My hubs and I were at a tattoo parlor (post for another day) when I see my hubs checking his phone for an email (I had heard the notification) . Well as usual I see my hubs looking with interest at the email and was waiting for him to share the email with me for what seemed like a long time. So I asked him, “what is it babe?” I was sure it was bad..he wasn’t sharing and he seemed incredibly pale so I was starting to worry. Again, I asked him, “What is it babe?”. After what seemed like an eternity my hubs came up besides me and laid the cell phone next to me on the bench and just pointed at it. I picked up the phone to see an email from SgtMaj Cochran, Gregs old SgtMaj from our last duty station. And I read the contents, “ Congratulations on your selection to SgtMaj” ........WOWSA.
Now I was in shock, surely this wasn’t right, a joke maybe? Someone with the same name? Just couldn’t be right. The reasons being a few. My hubs was in the below zone for SgtMaj, not just in below zone but way down buried in the below zone. So far down we weren’t even sure if he would be in zone next year. No one ever gets pulled out of the below zone for SgtMaj. at least not that we were aware of. It wasn’t even on our radar this year...we were so out of the loop with looking for this message to come out because we figured there was just no way. Those of you that read my blog and understand, above, zone and below will completely understand our shock.
It took about a whole day of not believing and about 100 congratulatory emails and text before we realized it was true. So I guess this may mean a possible PCS for us, and exciting new adventure. When I met my hubs he was getting ready to go in the Corps and I asked him what he wanted to be, he said he wanted to be a SgtMaj....well babe, you did it. And I could not be prouder.

Marine Corps Birthday Ball 2011

This year our son attended his first Marine Corps Birthday Ball with us. He has just attended his own at school for ROTC but this was his first with us. It was so nice, he came with a lovely young lady who dressed so nice and was so polite, our son has great taste. What I loved was how some of the Marine Corps Officers that were ROTC Midshipmen came up and introduced themselves to him and asked him about his program. Michael was feeling a bit out of place wearing a midshipmen uniform to a Marine Corps Ball but that quickly went away when he felt the camaraderie with other ROTC Alumnae.



This picture was taken at the Caesars bar the night before the ball, we had a great time just sitting there and as we did more and more people were coming to celebrate. Lets just say I drank a bit more then I would have liked but still had the best time.



more



more, me and my hubs...



This was taken at Shadow Bar after the ball, if you notice I have changed out of my fancy wear since my feet were killing me and I didn’t have any flip flops to put on or I would have, these ladies are the best!



Me, Dawn, and Michelle. These girls were my rock during deployment and well Dawn is being Dawn! LOL




Me and Dawn. Dawn is about 5ft Tall and well I am not..I look like an amazon next to her!



Me and my handsome hubs. He always looks so handsome and he always makes me feel like the prettiest girl in the room.



Some of the Lima ladies with Dawn.


The ball was amazing this year. The room was beautiful and the mood was awesome. We started off the ball with a montage of our fallen, it was a bit hard to swallow and I did my best to hold back the tears but it was hard not to think of those not with us that night. I felt like they were, and I wished more then ever my friend Mary could have been there. She was home awaiting the birth of her son but when Luke flashed on the screen I felt like she was there with us. We also were able to see some of our severely wounded Marines that were able to make it as well. It did my heart good to see the spirit of these young men was not left on a piece of ground in Afghanistan, but it was fully intact and evident in their smiles in that ball room. I know some of them have a long way to go but I have no doubt they will get there. What an amazing night, I love the Darkside and I love that we have these memories forever.

Veterans Day 2011

Happy Veterans Day to all of you that serve or who have served this great country of ours. And to a Veteran that never got the thanks deserved, R.I.P. dad and thank you for laying your life on the line for an ungrateful nation and to all his friends that came home to the U.S. of A. only to have backs turned to them, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE. Let us hope that no other veteran ever knows the pain of our Vietnam Veterans and their families. My father was K.I.A. in Vietnam and I know today he would be proud to see how we honor our vets coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Let not another single vet ever be forgotten or rejected ..... THANK YOU.

3/4 Memorial Never Forget

Lo there do I see my father. Lo there do I see my mother and my sisters and my brothers. Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning. Lo, they do call to me, they bid me take my place among them, in the Halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live...forever.

Wordless Wednesday----HOME

Love and Gratitude

On Monday, after a 24 hour delay, the love of my life finally made it home. On Sunday the day before, finally , after a very long and stressful deployment, I had a mini break down at the main gate hanging signs for my love and some of the others that couldn’t make it to homecoming that I offered to hang signs for. I thought I had been doing good, I thought I had kept it together....and I did, until we were 24 hours away from it all being over. At the gate with one of my dearest friends, Dawn...I almost completely came apart. I was agitated, I was irritable and I was throwing a temper tantrum. I was feeling the complete opposite that of a woman that was 24 hours away from getting her husband home safe. It was really difficult for me to try to understand why I was feeling that way, I actually knew why but up until then I hadn’t given those feelings a voice. To be quite blunt, I was seriously pissed off.
I was pissed off because there were 5 families that weren’t getting to hang signs, to know the joy we were all feeling at the end of this deployment, from all accounts one of, if not the most difficult deployments some of our Marines have been through. Not only did we lose 5 brave souls, we had 90 of our men, wounded. These are the statistics the media doesn’t report, and how about the countless others that were going to come home or who were already home with invisible wounds. This deployment sucked and at the end of it I found out I was pretty angry. I wanted to be thrilled that day, hanging our sign, welcoming our men home but I found myself really angry and I wanted to hit someone. I expressed this to my friend Dawn who told me if I hit her she was going to hit me back, and she would have no doubt, so that kind of made me snap out of it.
Monday the morning of our homecoming our men were again delayed several hours, I was called by another great friend Michelle who let me know , her husband had come home on Advon so she was anxious as only a real friend would be for me to have my homecoming and as excited as she was on the day of her own homecoming. So her and Dawn came over to my house that morning, Starbucks in hand to sit with me to help keep it together for this day, another friend came to do my hair so I would looMk pretty for my husband. During the day I had chatted with the mother of one of our fallen, and the wife of another of our fallen, who I also consider a dear friend. Their pain was palpable, this would have been their homecoming day as well, these were 2 of our Lima boys, and they were having a hard time, rightfully so. I didn’t want to tell them that I was angry they weren’t getting their day, so much so that is colored my whole day the day before, because if I have learned anything going through deployments it is that these things didn’t happen to me, it’s not about me, it’s about those families, the Goyets, the Lucas’s and the countless other families that have lost their heros. They both assured me that although they were struggling they were so happy we were all getting our Marines home safely. And I know they meant it.
The day of my homecoming I decided to take off my “advisor” hat and just be a wife waiting for her husband, the whole day I stayed home waiting to hear that our buses had rolled on to base, once I got the call that my husband was on base I made it to the field. It was a festive day, we had a family drive all the way from Texas to BBQ for their son and all his brothers, it was quite amazing and a huge task that we will never forget so thank you Delay Family. I found a corner to hang out in with my dear friends and we all gathered getting frequent updates about their arrival at the armory, and it took FOREVER, Did I mention the Commandant of the Marine Corps along with the SgtMaj of the Marine Corps decided to go greet our men at the armory and after came over to the field to chat with the families, it was really nice and they had come the night before as well to greet our PMT and some others. I will tell you there were countless times that I would look at children playing waiting for their their dads that I didn’t wish I would see Zach and Tyson waiting for their daddy, smiles ear to ear. Or hugging one of our moms wishing it was Martha as well here to greet Mark, their absence was so obvious to me, as I am sure it was to many others that day . I would like to add I keep referring to Mark and Lucas because they were Lima Marines, but in no way does it mean our other fallen didn’t cross my mind on countless times that day. Paul, Christopher and Jason were with us on that field that day as well...and we will always say their names at every give opportunity. Jasons grandmother and mother left lovely comments on my facebook the day my husband came home, Jason would have been home this week as well, and I will be at that homecoming and I will be wishing and thinking of his family as well. They are amazing woman that I feel lucky to have had been able to have a dialogue with.
Ok I am rambling. What I want to say is I am thankful, and my heart is full of gratitude to have my husband home, and my sons father. I know I am lucky, I will never take it for granted the gift I have received to have him come home. And I am grateful for friends that “get” it. I am also looking forward to helping my friend Dawn on her homecoming day, and until they all come home, I will keep waiting.
To our Darkside Families that lost their heros...we love you, we support you and we will never forget.

My Dog loves too....Well, Walk Dogs..

Wordless Wednesday-- Some of 3rd Platoon

When We Were Very Young

When I was growing up I was very tall and awkward. When I was 12 I was taller then most the boys I knew. It made me have terrible self-esteem issues and I never felt like I was pretty. It didn't help that my cousin Joni was what I considered a beauty. She was of average height and blonde hair and what I thought "perfect". Obviously many years later as I grew into my height and felt comfortable in my own skin I was so happy those "awkward" years were behind me. I have a husband I adore, that adores me. We have a son we are so proud of that will do great things in the world, at the very least he is a young man of great character and empathy and he just never ceases to make us proud.
So back to my story. I was on a Facebook page that was about the neighborhood in Philadelphia where I grew up . The admins put up a question everyday and todays was, Where did you hang out as a kid? So I answered. So long story short I get a message from one of the woman who read what I had written and asked me who my mother was (I don't have my maiden name on Facebook) and when I told her she was so excited that she knew me. She said I hung out with her cousin and she was a bit younger then me. She said she will never forget me because she thought I was a "Supermodel" because I was so "tall and beautiful" and that she loved when I came around because I was so nice to her and she thought when she grew up she hoped she was a "beautiful" as me. I have to say that pretty much floored me. So I was talking to my son about it later. I told him about the exchange and I told him, boy I wish I would have known that because I felt so ugly when I was growing up. And my son says to me, "mom, most beautiful girls feel that way." WOW...really? Now don't get me wrong, I don't in any way think I am beautiful , I am sure my son does and I am positive my husband and parents do because well, they love me. But I just thought what an interesting day...why do we spend so much time as young people so insecure, why don't we tell others how beautiful we think they are? Why is being a teenage girl so hard and why are we so hard on one another as females. I know it's deep....but really, don't you think it matters?