I can breathe again.
Tonight, we'll all be sleeping under the same stars, the same moon, the same sky...all at the same time.
We're still "apart"....Jake in Wisconsin, and Asher & I in Iowa...but we are SO close.
I've texted and called my husband today numerous times. He sent me a message saying how awesome it felt just to be able to contact me whenever he wanted. After not having something so simple that so many of us can take for granted, it's nice to know that we've got this quick and easy method for comminicating back in our life. He's even enjoyed a few pictures messages of Asher that I've sent to him already.
*SIGH* What a relief. I can truly breathe again.
He is not home in our arms, but he is home to America, and to know his feet are on our soil, his lungs are breathing our air, and that the water is fresh makes me nearly weap with joy.
Thank you, again, Lord, for delivering him from evil.
~Emily
Friday, July 8, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
My yoke is easy, and my burden light.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
Yesterday at Mass, this portion of Matthew's Gospel was proclaimed. It's one of my favorite Bible verses, but yesterday it really made me smile.
Talk about relief from a burden...I received confirmation from our favorite soldier himself that he, officially, is in transit, on his way home to the beautiful United States of America! Thank you, God, for delivering him safely from evil.
During the first deployment, I tried lots of things to try to make myself feel better...I did the activities I'd always loved to do, and even tried lots of new ones. Nothing seemed to make me feel better, no matter what I tried.
When Jake returned home, I joined a bible study on the invitation of my best friend. We thought we'd try one book with the group, and here we are, 6 years later, still meeting and growing in our faith with a wonderful group of women.
Over the last 6 years, Jake and I have worked on healing...individually and collectively. War changes people, and we had both definitely been through some battles. The carefree, naive kids we were at the beginning of the deployment no longer existed after. To say we were both carrying some burdens would be an understatement.
Learning and growing in our faith and our marriage helped us to to trust more in Christ and allow him to carry our burdens. Trust is difficult in general for many people. I like to think that I completely trust in Christ....but, usually what happens is that I offer over my worries my cares, my burdens to Him, and then...somehow sneakily take them back. I want to trust in Him, but it is a pretty big lesson to learn to pray for God's will in every aspect of your life. That's why I'm still learning, growing, and trying, every day.
Yesterday at Mass, Monsignor was speaking about how others "yoke themselves" to us, and help us carry our burdens. The sheer number of people who have willingly carried our burdens this past year is actually unfathomable, but I am going to attempt to give you an inkling of how caring family, friends, and neighbors have helped to "share the load" with us this year.
- Mailing packages and letters to Jake
- Making a meal for Asher & I
- Praying for us
- Buying me flowers
- Watching Asher so I could get things done
- Shoveling for us
- Making us smile
- Helping clean/organize our house
- Mowing our lawn
- Listening to us
- Sharing a meal with Asher & I
- Picking up & disposing of the dead animals in our yard
- Putting up/taking down our Christmas tree
- Special notes of encouragement
- Helping us keep our sense of humor
- Hugs
If you have done any of the above, please know you have helped to carry our burden and that your help meant more to us than we could ever adequately express. THANK YOU for your help in lightening our load.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Jellybeans: We've Come A Long Way
We've come a long way together, haven't we?Not so sad to say, this "journey" is nearing a close.
Remember when we had 400 jellybeans in our jar? The jar was filled with many brightly colored beans, and we hoped that the days would pass quickly. Jake packed away his jar in his rucksack, and mine & Asher's jar took up residency on top of the mircowave. It was soon moved to high shelves inside of cupboards once the boy became obsessed with the jellybeans. (Now, when he sees the jar, he asks for "Red, blue and green...")
We ate our way through the good beans (anything pink for me!), and the bad beans (buttered popcorn...YUCK!), the good days, and the awful ones. Even Sadie ate a bean one day (oops!)
We had to count...and sometimes recount...and look forward to the day there wouldn't be any jellybeans left in the jar.
Well, folks...we are nearly there.
While there has been no official word regarding when this journey ends for us, we are close, as you can see.
Won't it be a glorious day when there are NO jellybeans in the jar?! ~Emily
Monday, June 13, 2011
Symbols
The first time Jake was overseas, I was given a pin on the day of his send-off ceremony. For anyone who has never been to one of these unfortunate events, it's a lot of "blah blah blah" and bawling. Like, cry so many tears you don't have any left. Like you're puffy & blotchy for days and you feel miserable. Like you just said goodbye to the love of your life, your best friend, your son, your daughter, your dad, your brother, for maybe the last time. AWFUL.
The pin for me, was something I clung to. I wore it religiously. I put it on in the morning, and took it off at night. I wore it by my heart for all to see.
That was part of the problem, though. I put it out there for all to see. I had this...sense...this feeling that if I was miserable, perhaps I could wear it on the outside to show everyone how miserable I was. Instead, people saw it as a a way to open the door to communication with me. They'd ask me about it. They'd thank me. They'd comment on their thoughts on the war or our troops.
I didn't want questions, or to be thanked, or their political diatribes. I wanted my husband back.
The day he came home, I put away the pin in a jewelry box. I thought to myself, "I never want to wear you EVER AGAIN."
It's not that I wasn't proud of my husband...because I was and am VERY proud of him. The pain that had come through that 16 months of deployment, though, had taken it's toll on me, and I thought that if I locked that piece of metal away, that maybe those feelings would disappear, too. They didn't.
We had to deal, individually, and collectively, with a gamut of emotions and issues that came from the deployment. And, I think we had made it.
But here we are again....winding down another deployment. This time I haven't donned a pin. This time I haven't worn it outwardly on my chest, but I'm sure it's shown on my face with the black circles under my eyes, or the anxiety in my smile, or the exhaustion of dealing with the behavior of our son without my partner to physically lean on.
This time words like "Flat Daddy" and "Skype" have become daily vocabularly. Skype "lunch dates" with my husband has been a major way we've been able to connect this time. Flat Daddy has been such a literal gift to Asher...he has dragged him around the house, hugged him, kissed him, played with him, and even scolded him!
Although Skype and Flat Daddy have been wonderful additions to this deployment, in a way, I'm beginning to feel the same things I felt for the pin....that when my husband finally comes home, I'd like to never have to see or say those words ever again. Soon, they'll become obsolete in our daily routines, and hopefully be replaced with conscious and active participation in each others' physical lives and being sure not to take even one minute with each other for granted.
~Emily
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Damn Engineers...
After posting several times tonight, I realized that I am being very remiss in regards to one group of soldiers I hold near and dear to my heart...my fellow combat engineers. I am still proud to this day to call myself a combat engineer and would not have it any other way.
It definitely takes a different breed of man to be a combat engineer. You have to be willing to out stink your best friends, eat C-4 and do some other things that can't be mentioned in a public forum (you know what you did in Riley, Cal - classic, but DAMN MAN!!). You also have to be willing to get into a steel box on wheels and knowingly drive down a road that has an explosive device buried in it and WANT to find it.
My former company of engineers have had several different missions since starting this little adventure - aerial reaction force, infantry platoon, cav platoon and route clearance patrol/package/platoon. With each new task, they have done what engineers do, adapt and overcome. The way we do things may not be to the liking of very many (mainly the infantry and cav) but one can argue, we get the damn job done.
The men of my former company have done everything the infantry guys have done - conducted patrols, been shot at, shot back and been hit by IED's. They also, willingly, do something that infantry guys don't...go look for the little bastards that blow up our trucks, hurt our friends and kill fellow soldiers. The men of A Co have done well - no matter what ANYONE says...because in the end, we'll take the wrench.
Keep up the good work guys, sorry I blew up and the first round at Jeno's is on me.
~Jake
It definitely takes a different breed of man to be a combat engineer. You have to be willing to out stink your best friends, eat C-4 and do some other things that can't be mentioned in a public forum (you know what you did in Riley, Cal - classic, but DAMN MAN!!). You also have to be willing to get into a steel box on wheels and knowingly drive down a road that has an explosive device buried in it and WANT to find it.
My former company of engineers have had several different missions since starting this little adventure - aerial reaction force, infantry platoon, cav platoon and route clearance patrol/package/platoon. With each new task, they have done what engineers do, adapt and overcome. The way we do things may not be to the liking of very many (mainly the infantry and cav) but one can argue, we get the damn job done.
The men of my former company have done everything the infantry guys have done - conducted patrols, been shot at, shot back and been hit by IED's. They also, willingly, do something that infantry guys don't...go look for the little bastards that blow up our trucks, hurt our friends and kill fellow soldiers. The men of A Co have done well - no matter what ANYONE says...because in the end, we'll take the wrench.
Keep up the good work guys, sorry I blew up and the first round at Jeno's is on me.
~Jake
Injured soldiers...
During this deployment the soldiers of the task forces under the umbrella of TASK FORCE RED BULLS have faced the enemy time and time again. Sometimes our boys have come out on top (like a recent event that involved over 10 hours of constant fighting that resulted in a tally of 65 - 0), broke even and have come out on the wrong end. We have had almost 20 soldiers wounded in combat and 3 that went home by themselves after paying the ultimate cost.
The first event in which our soldiers were critically wounded occurred during an IED blast. The soldiers in the vehicle were severely wounded and came to BAF (Bagram Airfield) for initial and stabilizing treatment before being moved to a medical aircraft and flown to Germany. When these three soldiers got here, a friend of mine and I decided to visit them in the hospital.
By the time we got there, the one that was in the best condition had already been flown out, the next less severely injured soldier was in surgery and the gravest one was in the intensive care unit. As we entered the hospital, a single thought entered my mind. I was reminded of an email I received while serving my first tour here in 2005 that notified me that a friend had died of his injuries during an IED blast in Al-Ramadii, Iraq...SGT (posthumously promoted) Seth Garceau. Seth was a soldier that never complained, accomplished his work (with a little prodding sometimes) and always greeted you when you got to the armory in the morning for drill - he ALWAYS stayed the night there. When we walked into the ICU, I tried to imagine if Seth had been treated much in the same way as these soldiers were being treated...a nurse constantly checking and re-checking the monitors, hovering near - watching for any sign that things were either improving or declining. I knew these guys were in good hands, but remembered, like with Seth, they were far from being out of the woods.
After Seth was stabilized in the Green Zone, he was also transferred to a medical bird and flown to Germany...except Seth died on that aircraft after having gone into cardiac arrest multiple times. Now, since his death, I have tried to remember him every Memorial Day, every Veterans Day, every national holiday that celebrates sacrifice, honor and duty. Sometimes I do a good job, other times I fail miserably. When I saw the young man in front of me, laying on a hospital bed with part of his skull removed because of the brain swelling, seeing his legs in traction because they had been fractured so severely, seeing his arm casted temporarily and knowing the internal injuries he had suffered I became extremely angry...hateful and vengeful. This young man, just like Seth, had been gravely injured by an IED, an improvised explosive device...something that I was supposed to be helping these guys find, defeat and kill the bastards that were emplacing them, making them and financing them. I felt like I had failed him and his friends...and that was not to be the last time I felt that. Thankfully, all three of those soldiers made it back home and are on the long road to recovery...but they will live and they will recover.
The first week of April was a very trying time for our task force and the soldiers of Iowa. In a three day time span we had 2 soldiers killed...again, by IED's. Again, I felt the bile rise in my throat as I felt the shame of failure. Felt the uncontrollable rage rise up in my chest...and flood my vision. One of the soldiers that was killed was in an area of operations that we don't directly control. This soldier was the same age as I am and had gone through the infantry transition course with another dear friend of mine. In the vehicle with him, unbeknownst to me, was another soldier I am privileged to call friend. He and I were deployed together the first time and in the years that passed (as many times happens in the National Guard) our paths crossed several times...each time a conversation was had, much bantering back and forth was done and a good time was had. When I found out that J (I am only going to use the first initial in his last name) was injured, I tried to find out where he was, what had happened and began data-mining for any information I could get my hands on. I found out when he was coming to BAF, what had happened and how they had been injured.
The day that J was coming in, we had planned on visiting him in the hospital after the ramp ceremony for the soldier that died. When we got to the hospital, they informed us that J wasn't there yet and would be in later that day. So, later that day, some of us that were able came back, did. Now, they said J was going to be brought in from the flight line in an ambulance...so when a medical bus pulled up - we didn't think anything of it...we should have. Our First Sergeant did ask the young airmen standing at the rear of the bus if they needed any help, because - well, we were just standing there not doing much waiting, so when he said yes, they did need help, we all walked over. As the soldier was being handed out of the rear of the bus on a stretcher, I was placed in a position where I would have a hold of the handles right next to his head. When he was finally handed down, I looked down and saw....my buddy.
Now, J is a pretty tough son of a gun...someone that I have to give consideration to before tangling up with...when I looked down at him all bandaged up, tubes in him and doped up pretty good....I was pissed all over again. I truly wanted to do terrible things to the people who had done this to my friend, my fellow soldier and father of little ones. We got him into the hospital, into the emergency triage area and then left so the docs could do what needed to be done. After a little while, they started to work on his leg...the one that was the most injured. When they started working on it, the docs asked if we wanted to be in there with him while they casted it up. When I walked back in, you could tell he was still in pain despite the painkillers they had him on. He recognized me again when I got next to his side and, though it isn't very manly, I got the chance to hold his hand and talk to him while they set a temporary cast on his leg. Before we left, he mentioned that he knew what had happened to all the guys in his truck...and seeing the look on his face restarted the rage.
Later that night he was awarded his Purple Heart and prepped to be moved to Germany for further treatment and then to the States. During the entire thing he was chatty - J has never been one to be quiet anyway. It was good to see him somewhat like himself, but still - the image of that tough SOB sitting in a hospital bed with multiple injuries hit a nerve...one that still rages whenever something happens with IED's in our area of operations and with our soldiers.
~Jake
The first event in which our soldiers were critically wounded occurred during an IED blast. The soldiers in the vehicle were severely wounded and came to BAF (Bagram Airfield) for initial and stabilizing treatment before being moved to a medical aircraft and flown to Germany. When these three soldiers got here, a friend of mine and I decided to visit them in the hospital.
By the time we got there, the one that was in the best condition had already been flown out, the next less severely injured soldier was in surgery and the gravest one was in the intensive care unit. As we entered the hospital, a single thought entered my mind. I was reminded of an email I received while serving my first tour here in 2005 that notified me that a friend had died of his injuries during an IED blast in Al-Ramadii, Iraq...SGT (posthumously promoted) Seth Garceau. Seth was a soldier that never complained, accomplished his work (with a little prodding sometimes) and always greeted you when you got to the armory in the morning for drill - he ALWAYS stayed the night there. When we walked into the ICU, I tried to imagine if Seth had been treated much in the same way as these soldiers were being treated...a nurse constantly checking and re-checking the monitors, hovering near - watching for any sign that things were either improving or declining. I knew these guys were in good hands, but remembered, like with Seth, they were far from being out of the woods.
After Seth was stabilized in the Green Zone, he was also transferred to a medical bird and flown to Germany...except Seth died on that aircraft after having gone into cardiac arrest multiple times. Now, since his death, I have tried to remember him every Memorial Day, every Veterans Day, every national holiday that celebrates sacrifice, honor and duty. Sometimes I do a good job, other times I fail miserably. When I saw the young man in front of me, laying on a hospital bed with part of his skull removed because of the brain swelling, seeing his legs in traction because they had been fractured so severely, seeing his arm casted temporarily and knowing the internal injuries he had suffered I became extremely angry...hateful and vengeful. This young man, just like Seth, had been gravely injured by an IED, an improvised explosive device...something that I was supposed to be helping these guys find, defeat and kill the bastards that were emplacing them, making them and financing them. I felt like I had failed him and his friends...and that was not to be the last time I felt that. Thankfully, all three of those soldiers made it back home and are on the long road to recovery...but they will live and they will recover.
The first week of April was a very trying time for our task force and the soldiers of Iowa. In a three day time span we had 2 soldiers killed...again, by IED's. Again, I felt the bile rise in my throat as I felt the shame of failure. Felt the uncontrollable rage rise up in my chest...and flood my vision. One of the soldiers that was killed was in an area of operations that we don't directly control. This soldier was the same age as I am and had gone through the infantry transition course with another dear friend of mine. In the vehicle with him, unbeknownst to me, was another soldier I am privileged to call friend. He and I were deployed together the first time and in the years that passed (as many times happens in the National Guard) our paths crossed several times...each time a conversation was had, much bantering back and forth was done and a good time was had. When I found out that J (I am only going to use the first initial in his last name) was injured, I tried to find out where he was, what had happened and began data-mining for any information I could get my hands on. I found out when he was coming to BAF, what had happened and how they had been injured.
The day that J was coming in, we had planned on visiting him in the hospital after the ramp ceremony for the soldier that died. When we got to the hospital, they informed us that J wasn't there yet and would be in later that day. So, later that day, some of us that were able came back, did. Now, they said J was going to be brought in from the flight line in an ambulance...so when a medical bus pulled up - we didn't think anything of it...we should have. Our First Sergeant did ask the young airmen standing at the rear of the bus if they needed any help, because - well, we were just standing there not doing much waiting, so when he said yes, they did need help, we all walked over. As the soldier was being handed out of the rear of the bus on a stretcher, I was placed in a position where I would have a hold of the handles right next to his head. When he was finally handed down, I looked down and saw....my buddy.
Now, J is a pretty tough son of a gun...someone that I have to give consideration to before tangling up with...when I looked down at him all bandaged up, tubes in him and doped up pretty good....I was pissed all over again. I truly wanted to do terrible things to the people who had done this to my friend, my fellow soldier and father of little ones. We got him into the hospital, into the emergency triage area and then left so the docs could do what needed to be done. After a little while, they started to work on his leg...the one that was the most injured. When they started working on it, the docs asked if we wanted to be in there with him while they casted it up. When I walked back in, you could tell he was still in pain despite the painkillers they had him on. He recognized me again when I got next to his side and, though it isn't very manly, I got the chance to hold his hand and talk to him while they set a temporary cast on his leg. Before we left, he mentioned that he knew what had happened to all the guys in his truck...and seeing the look on his face restarted the rage.
Later that night he was awarded his Purple Heart and prepped to be moved to Germany for further treatment and then to the States. During the entire thing he was chatty - J has never been one to be quiet anyway. It was good to see him somewhat like himself, but still - the image of that tough SOB sitting in a hospital bed with multiple injuries hit a nerve...one that still rages whenever something happens with IED's in our area of operations and with our soldiers.
~Jake
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