****This post is part of my series on Real Army Wives. This series follows my husband’s first deployment to Iraq in 2003, but it’s the story of the wives back home more so than the men at war. Click here for last week’s post, Alan’s Convoy Attack.***** Mon., October 6, 2003 Alan, I’ve had a week off now to think about what it is I should be doing. I really still want to be a physical therapist. The only reason I […]
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****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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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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****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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***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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***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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*******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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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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****This post is part of the series The Real Army Wives, appearing every Monday on storiesofourboys.com. For the first half of the book, click here. For last week’s post, click here.***** When I was 22, it felt like there were decisions to make at every turn. Sometimes I chose unwisely. I tried to make the best, most logical plans. What I learned that summer was that sometimes people and emotions count for more than practicality. Did you watch the Star […]
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*******This post is part of the series, The Real Army Wives. For last week’s post click here.******* Guest Post from Cloe Real Army Wives: The Mystery Checks Today’s post is written by a good friend and fellow real Army wife of mine who is the inspiration for the character, Cloe. You can read more about her on this post. When I mentioned this to Alan, he said, “Oh yeah, Rob! That dude had to shave his face twice a day.” Oh, […]
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