Alan’s Convoy Attack

The Convoy Attack True Stories of Real Army Wives Series

****It has been a few weeks since our last chapter, so let’s do a quick recap. I finally quit teaching, and Alan left Tikrit and moved to Ad Dawr.  At this point, we are 6 months into our first deployment, exactly halfway through it. So far, Alan’s unit had suffered 3 casualties. I also came up with this clever list of my expectations as a mil spouse. This is part of my ongoing series of the story of our first deployment, […]

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The Time of Our Sojourning in Georgia

When Jacob, as in Jacob one of the patriarchs of Israel, moved to Egypt during the famine, his son Joseph introduced him to Pharaoh. Jacob was already ancient, so Pharaoh asked him how old he was. Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my […]

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6 Ways to Save Your Marriage During Deployment

****This post is part of the series Real Army Wives on storiesofourboys.com. This series chronicles the story of our first deployment, back in 2003.**** Once Alan had been gone for 6 months, and we were finally able to communicate regularly, we found that we began to bicker–even from continents away. We were having newlywed problems, whether we were together or not. Alan was anxious to move us forward towards our goals in the U.S., yet he was stuck in a […]

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The First 3 Casualties From Our First Deployment

***This post is part of the Real Army Wives series, which appears each Monday morning on storiesofourboys.com. Click here for last week’s chapter. In this series, all names of service members and their wives are changed. However, names of the fallen soldiers are their correct names.*** Preparing for the Worst We all supposedly knew going into this that they wouldn’t all come home, but I never dwelt on that bit of information. Call it a defense mechanism, I don’t know. Being happy […]

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My First Colossal Failure & My Supportive Spouse Overseas

My First Colossal Failure & My Supportive Spouse Overseas

***This post belongs to the series True Stories of Real Army Wives. ***** My last post was about how miserable I was as a teacher. Alan must have called me the morning after my first or second day of teaching from Iraq. What he wrote in response to my hardship is one of the most touching, empathetic, heartfelt letters I have ever read. No, he wasn’t physically there, and yet with this letter you can see how he was still obviously […]

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Miserable Teaching with 20 boys & the Toothless Wonder

20 boys and the toothless wonder. story of my first week of teaching

***This post is part of the Real Army Wives series, which runs every Monday on storiesofourboys.com. For last week’s chapter click here.*** Sunday, Aug. 17, 2003 Oh, Alan, I missed you the MOST today! We had “Back to School” night, where we meet the parents. Everything was fine except instead of 22, I now have 25, and also this grandparent with two children in my class stayed after and basically threatened me. Yeah. This ignorant, toothless wonder, with a strong […]

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True Stories of Real Army Wives: My First Teaching Job

my very first teaching job. True Stories of Real Army Wives during deployment

Sun., Aug. 10, 2003 Alan, Hey Babe! Tomorrow is my first day of work. In case you haven’t yet gotten my previous letter, I got hired by Graham Elementary School downtown yesterday! Yay!! I’ll be making $32,000 this year. It’s a state charter school serving mostly low-income students, but it’s located in a church. Yeah, it’s different, but I’m excited about it. I’ll be teaching 3rd and 4th grade in one classroom, all subjects. It’s going to be tough. School starts […]

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Real Army Wives: Grim Reminders and My Guardian Angel

Real Army Wives: Grim Reminders and My Guardian Angel

*******This post is part of the series True Stories of Real Army Wives. This blog series takes place in 2003, at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. All names of current military members and their spouses are changed.****** To read last week’s post, click here. Several things happened as that summer ended. Ashley, a friend of mine from church and one of the first people I’d met in Killeen, experienced a tragedy. Her husband’s XO was shot and killed. That was […]

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Mil Spouse Problems: 13 Months, The Illegal Question, & the Cat

Mil Spouse Problems: 13 Months, The Illegal Question, & the Cat

This post is part of the series True Stories of Real Army Wives. To read last week’s post, click here. Alan was good about taking photos with a disposable camera and mailing me the cameras later on. I’m going to include a few of those pictures in today’s post. Wed., July 23, 2003 11:32 pm Oh! Well, I went to choir practice tonight. I left in tears. At the end of practice, Bruce announced that he saw on Fox News […]

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The Military Spouse of the Year Award

Kids’ papers often get turned in a day or two late. Sometimes things go missing for days before we find them at the bottom of a stack. My dining room table looks like…. Well, it looks like this: My four-year-old loves to paint just as much as I love to blog. This whole rule of disorder has been bothering me and also making me feel like a failure, so I decided to give up blogging. “I’ll do it on the […]

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