I can’t begin to fathom the full extent of the suffering inflicted upon the soldiers and families of Fort Hood. To have a place that is supposed to be safe, supposed to be home, instead become the site of tragedy wrought by a person who was supposed to be a brother… that betrayal of trust will not be quickly nor painlessly mended. My thoughts and prayers are with the dead, the wounded, their families, and all those who now must come to terms with this unthinkable act.
Author: To the Nth
Expiration Date
I learned something new yesterday. Did you know that orders actually expire? I always thought that unless they were specifically designated as temporary, they would just chug merrily along until the next set came down the pipe.
My husband got home from copiloting someone else’s sim event a little later than expected because he got called in to give some information so they could renew his orders to the FRS. The best part is that the orders were originally written to give a nice big cushion — way more time than should have been needed to complete the activity — so that they don’t have to go through the adminstrivia associated with generating new orders. We have officially been here about three times as long as the FRS was supposed to take.
With all the wangst that our extended stay has been generating lately, I got a much-needed laugh out of that.
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Cobwebs
It’s been so long since I posted here that I feel like I should do the Internet equivalent of shaking out the rugs and dusting the furniture. (I’ll avoid the vacuum metaphor lest it reinforce how badly I have sucked at being a regular MilSpouseBlogger.) So, uh… hello. Nice to type at you again. Hope you had a nice Halloween, Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, Sukkot, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and any other holiday that has passed since I managed to throw up an entry here in Nth-land. Ours were fairly nice, on the whole. We even built our own sukkah for the first time this year, as this was the first year we were in town to enjoy having our own yard in which to build the temporary hut for the Feast of Booths. Our actual “dwelling” in the sukkah for meals was severely curtailed by the bumper crop of mosquitoes; we discovered that being a festive meal is much less joyful than eating a festive meal. Still, we felt pretty accomplished just for building and decorating the structure, and we did manage to partake of a few tasty beverages within before getting too chewed on by bugs.
On the Navy side of the coin, things are still slo-o-ow on this journey to the first fleet squadron, wherever that might end up being. However, there is evidence that the pace will be picking up considerably with the arrival of 2010, in the form of a mad dash to get my husband prepared for carrier qualification sometime in March. Keep in mind that we arrived here in early May… of 2008. That puts us at nearly a year and a half of being told that things are going to get moving any week now, so stay ready to pick up and move at any time. On paper it looks like we’ve had a lot of free time, but the fact that my husband has still had to check the flight schedule every evening on the off chance that he might have an event the next day has put a damper on any number of things we might have liked to accomplish. There are several home improvement projects that we put off starting lest we have to drop them in the middle when the flight training finally picked up. We could each be well on our way to completing a graduate program. I could have put more serious effort into looking for a job if I’d known to laugh in the face of the predicted six-month FRS timeframe. Hell, we could have gotten me knocked up as soon as we moved into our house, experienced the whole pregnancy together, and spent the first seven months of our child’s life with hardly anything to distract our focus from the nugget — er, baby.
On second thought, scratch that last one. Murphy’s Law would have ensured that the moment we saw the little plus sign on the pregnancy test, my husband would have been rocketed through the syllabus at record speed, sent immediately on his first det, and left me to move to California by myself just before giving birth. I’m glad we opted for cats instead.
Don’t get me wrong — I love having my husband around so much on a day-to-day basis, but I think we’re both going to be relieved when he is finally able to dive into flying again. There is very little sadder than a Naval Aviator who is not flying, and I can tell it’s getting to him. It’s more than mere lack of flight time, though. He has many friends from his graduating class at the Naval Academy (not in aviation, obviously) who have already completed their first sea tours and several deployments. My husband wants to get to the point where he is truly serving rather than only training to do so. I’m proud of him for it, and I understand, but I do feel the need to point out that there is little need to worry that the Navy won’t get its fair return (and then some) on the investment. I am certain we’ll be looking back wistfully on this relative freedom soon enough, but we ought not let ourselves forget that too much “free time” ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
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The D-word
A recent post by ENS Wifey got me thinking about something a well-meaning family member said to me when I expressed concern over a central aspect of my husband’s chosen career. A couple years ago, my father-in-law (retired SWO and all-around awesome guy who has Been There and Done That) mentioned something about deployment, and I quipped that he shouldn’t say that dirty word in polite company. That brought the conversation to a halt. He told me I shouldn’t think of it that way, but rather as a good thing, an opportunity for growth, and so on and so forth.
Spoken like someone who has always been the one leaving to Do Things around the globe rather than the one left back at home, right?
I would never try to argue that deployed servicemembers have it “easier” or “better” than their spouses, but I do think a very different kind of dread accompanies the prospect of being the one who must passively wait and worry than the one who is actively involved in the mission du jour.
I know my father-in-law was trying to be encouraging–I do appreciate that–but it’s just a step too far for me to be able to look at the D-word as a good thing. I can manage that it’s not a terrible thing nor the end of the world nor cause to fall apart into a wibbly pile of emotional Jell-o, and even that it might indeed be an opportunity for growth, but I am not going to pretend that I look forward to being separated from my husband for months at a stretch.
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September Snuck Up
September’s arrival brought with it a refreshing drop in temperature, a breath of autumn that puts me in mind of new school supplies and apple-picking with Hillel. Alas, I neither have need of new school supplies, nor am I any longer a member of Hillel’s target demographic. (For the goyim, Hillel is an organization for Jewish college students; I was heavily involved in my college’s chapter back in the day.) The lifting of summer’s lethargy that comes with the cooler weather is welcome even in my post-academic life, though, and I’m getting excited about the coming fall.
Rosh Hashanah is coming up, with its promises of apples and honey in hopes of a sweet new year. In fact, friend of mine from college just sent me a link to a delectable-sounding apple and honey challah that might have to find its way into my baking rotation for the holiday. It would be more fun, of course, if I could look forward to the annual apple-picking trip with a Jewish community of my peers, but we haven’t found a group in our area that evokes the same sort of camaraderie. Part of it is that we’re stuck between ages or phases of life that have strong support groups. Having graduated years ago, we’re too old for Hillel. We’re married, so Jewish singles groups are out. We don’t have children yet, so we aren’t networking with parents taking their kids to Hebrew school, either. I know some synagogues have “Young Professionals” groups that cater to those in our situation, but our shul isn’t one of them.
Oh well. It’s not like we’re stationed someplace with no Jewish community whatsoever, which could easily become the case if we wind up in Japan. I just get a little sad thinking that for as long as we’re moving at least every three, we will perpetually be “the new couple” at whatever synagogue we attend (let’s face it: there are some shuls where you can be “the new couple” for ten years or more). It would be nice to meet some local folks our age with whom we could exchange Shabbat dinner invitations from time to time. It’s tough–some would say impossible–to be a Jew in a vacuum, but we don’t have the luxury of putting down roots in one community and letting relationships develop slowly over many years. Couple that with the fact that both my husband and I are inclined towards introversion, and we’ve got ourselves a problem for which we haven’t yet found a solution. But who knows? Maybe the upcoming year 5770 holds some fresh insights for us.
Ah well, social maunderings can’t detract too much from my overall anticipation of the new season. My baby (!) brother is turning twenty-one, my college roommate is getting married to my husband’s college roommate (sounds like a sit-com, huh?), and we are lucky enough to be spending this autumn in a part of the country filled with deciduous trees that will soon be turning glorious colors. Life is good.
To the Nth 