Rakkasan!!

In 1776 God created the United States.
Now the United States was not established, the darkness of war was over the land, and the Spirit of Revolution was in the air.

And God said, "Let there be victory," and there was victory. God saw that the victory was good, and He freed the United States from British rule. God called the victory "freedom." And there was peace and prosperity in the land.

And God said, "Let there be a written word to guarantee the freedom of the people." So God made the written word and guaranteed the freedom of the people. And it was so. God called the written word "the Constitution." And there were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all men.

And God said, "Let the United States be given an Army to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." And it was so. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, "Let the Army be given a unit made up of shit-kicking, bad ass, hardcore mother fuckers who will destroy the enemy with prodigious skill." And it was so. God called the unit "the Rakkasans." And God saw that it was very good.

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways. . . Actually, my husband just left this morning after 2 weeks of rest and recreation, and I am reminding myself of all the ways that I do NOT miss his ass! I love my husband and I hate for him to be gone, but we must look at the bright side and my bright side is the long list of shit that I do not miss about him being around. So here are two comprehensive lists for comparison purposes: things I do miss and things I don't.

THINGS I MISS WHEN HE'S DEPLOYED:
1. Sex
2. Trivia Pursuit
3. Intelligent conversations with an adult
4. More sex
5. Another set of hands with the kids (especially at 2am with the baby)
6. His spontaneity
7. Someone else to help with cooking and cleaning
8. Barbecue!
9. Sex
10. Knowing he's safe

THINGS I DO NOT MISS WHEN HE'S DEPLOYED:
1. Laundry, heaps and heaps of laundry (how can one person make that many dirty clothes?)
2. Noises coming from the garage
3. Dirt from the garage all over my house
4. His inability to sit still for 2 seconds
5. The constant changing of the television channels
6. Having to give him sex (let's face it, sometimes I just don't feel like it!)
7. The ridiculous water bill (how can it go up $40 from him being here?)
8. Being broke (between the car and the kids, I swear he EATS money)
9. His spoiling of the kids and letting them get away with everything
10. Having to have rum and coke on hand at all times
11. the snoring!!!!

I am a very lucky woman to have married the man I did. He's a great father and everything I ever wanted in a husband. How many other people do you know who have been married 15 years who still have sex 3-4 times a week? I am crazy about this man!

But for now, I intend to relish the little things that make me happy he's gone. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but it's either live it up or curl up in a ball and cry! I choose life.

Hello MidTour Leave

Have you ever hear that song "Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great."? Again, gotta love that Monty Python. However, with my husband coming home on mid-tour, I have to disagree with this sentiment. I do not want another baby, much as I want to get laid. That's all.

Moving on. I know that the half-way point of this deployment is here, husbands are rotating in for R&R, and everyone is antsy, but everyone needs to seriously calm the fuck down. Angry month "has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are history! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!" Angry month should be DEAD!

I know everyone is anxiously anticipating their own husband's brief visit home. I know there's joy for your friends juxtaposed with jealously and it sucks waiting. I know the waiting is interminable. I know. I really do. And even with my own husband a mere 12 hours from landing, I still ask WHY??? Why is everyone so angry and anxious? R&R is the worst idea ever. I love my husband--love seeing him, talking with him, spending time with him, just him-- but I do not like R&R for one very simple, gut-wrenching reason: he has to go back.

Saying good-bye the second time is worse than the initial fare thee well was. Why do we have to go through this? And this is why I think angry month is dragging on well beyond its allotted, scheduled time. Let it go. Don't get so attached to him or the idea of him. Deployment may be half-over but there is STILL a hell of a long way to go. Let's move on into "Over the Hump-Whoo hoo Month" and get this deployment knocked out.

Hurry Up and Wait

If you have been in the Army longer than two seconds, you know that the Army motto is not "An Army of One." It's "Hurry up and Wait." It seems like everything in the Army takes ten times longer than it does anywhere else, especially if it something that will benefit you personally in any way. Example: the Army pulls half your pay, saying you owe the Army money for lost equipment. This is because some fuck nut has put the wrong social security number into the computer and completely messed with your pay. Finance says they will fix it, no problem. Now the paperwork saying you owed money took like five days to process. It took 3 months to get that money back! Hurry up and wait!

But now I find myself wondering if maybe the Army shouldn't have something a bit more encompassing for their motto, like "Fly by the Seat of your Pants" or something. Case in point, my husband's mid-tour leave dates have been moved up, moved back, cancelled, and shifted more times than I can count. I found out Friday that he'll be here as early as Tuesday?? Hello and fuck me sideways! When the hell did this change happen? My husband found out himself on Friday. So now I have 4 days to clean my house, figure out what I'm going to do with the kids while I go to the airport because their father doesn't want them to be there to pick him up, deal with the psycho in-laws (who are STILL pissed off at me and said "uh-huh" when I told them he was coming home), and attempt to maintain my sanity. Great.

And what really annoys me in all this is that it blind-sided me! I am an idiot. How long have we been in the Army now? You would think I would know better by now than to put too much stock in any kind of Army scheduling. Like the weather in Ohio, if you don't like it, wait a minute--it'll change!

Bad News in Threes

I know it's a stupid superstition, so why does it always seem to just happen to work out that bad things do come in threes? We have two men get wounded and now from out of the blue, number three hits.

When the guys are deployed and even just training, you know there's the possibility that they could get hurt. No matter how confident you may be, it's always in the back of your mind. If you're like me, you try to forget that he's in the line of fire and you spend a LOT of time on your knees. When word comes down that one the of guys has been hurt, it's horrible, scary, and heart-wrenching, but not completely off the wall and unexpected.

Now, when a wife dies, that is totally off the wall and unexpected. WTF!?! The sweetest woman you'd ever meet, and I really mean that. She was a gorgeous person, inside and out and I cannot believe that she is gone. Her husband, one of the old second platoon boys, is on drill status and she hasn't been in the best of health, but fuck me sideways if I'm ever going to be able to wrap my brain around her not being here.

Can your heart bleed? Because if it can, between my boys getting hurt and this beautiful lady dying, I am in serious need of a tourniquet or something before I bleed out. I've been trying to be calm and help out where I can and so far I've managed not to crawl up in a ball and cry until I puke. This deployment better hurry the fuck up and end before I ram my foot up its ass!!

WIA/KIA

I am going to puke. We got an IRON Alert to say that two men in the platoon were WIA (wounded in action). I know they are not my husband's men anymore, technically speaking, but they will always be his boys. These are men I know and love and respect and would do anything, absolutely anything, for. They are just wounded and apparently nothing major according to the Alert, but goddammit!! these are my boys and I want to go to the rock pile and FUCK someone up for hurting them. But I'm stuck here and can't do a damn thing besides worry and pray. This sucks!!

IRON Alerts have got to be the most horrifying thing you can see in your email inbox. It's a notification from the command that there has been a WIA or a KIA in the battalion along with which company, platoon, whatever the soldier(s) is in and how bad it was. No names. Now, the IRON Alerts come out after the family has been told, so if the alert is your first news about it, your soldier is not involved. SO opening one of those means it may be someone you know and are friends with, which breaks your heart, while at the same time you're thinking, "Thank God it wasn't mine." I hate IRON Alerts. They make me want to cry and they make me feel like a horrible, selfish person all at the same time.

I will say, however, that I am so glad it wasn't a KIA (killed in action) in the platoon. If that ever happens, I swear to God, you will have to lock me up in one of the little white coats and drag me off. But it is NOT going to happen. These are Rakkasans, some of the most bad-ass, well-trained mother-fuckers on the planets and the Afghanis got lucky. Damn, I hate this.

We have had one and only one KIA in the company since this thing started and thank God for small favours. I spent the better part of 2 weeks calming people down, answering phone calls from panicked wives and parents, passing out tissues, letting people cry on me, collecting funds and shopping for bereavement gifts, which is a challenging, hopeless, horrible thing to get shanghaied into doing. What do you buy for parents who are grieving the loss of their son that doesn't come across as trite or unfeeling? I think we did OK and let his parents know how much he is loved by the men and families, but this is horse shit. I am NEVER doing that again. The boys are all coming home. All of them. Even if I have to enlist and go guard their asses. They will all come home.

Army Values: A Wife's Perspective

So I get a phone call from the colonel's wife. No big deal. I'm the treasurer for the FRG account and figured I had mis-added something on the last audit. I'm not embezzling money so it's something stupid. Easy to fix. No problem. Instead, I find out that my name somehow got submitted by some crazy fucktard to the monthly thing on post where the general recognizes "outstanding volunteers who go above and beyond the call of duty." I know I should feel honoured. I know I should be grateful. I know that I should be eating this shit up. SO why do I feel like an idiot and why am I dreading going to this ceremony?

I am an Army wife. Like my husband, I live my life according to the seven Army values to try to be a good reflection on my husband and to be an example of what a good Army wife should be. Maybe you've never heard of the Army values so here they are: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honour, Integrity, and Personal Courage. These are the code my husband and I have always lived by and we stick to it hard. We are a military family and this is how we should be living.

So, I am loyal to my husband (I don't screw around), his men and their families. If they need help, I help them. Simple as that. Because my husband is an NCO, this is not an option, but a duty. His job is to take care of his men and so it is my job to help him accomplish this. I have great respect for the men my husband works with and for and try to never make myself a nuisance or be seen as a troublemaker. I do whatever is asked of me (and in fact, I have difficulty telling people no) and thereby exhibit selfless service. I act with honour in all situations and put my husband, my children and the men above everything. I take pride in the unit and its legacy, making it a point to go to all ceremonies and events that honour our prior members. I act with integrity--I don't lie, I don't complain unless it's a serious issue, and I always do what I say I'm going to. I display personal courage every time I raise hell to get the job done (housing really hates me) or I face down an officer who isn't doing what he should. I will go to bat for anyone who needs help and work to see it done right.

Why is this something that needs to be recognized? I am doing the right thing and doing the right thing is its own reward. I feel like an idiot when people tell me "thank you" and hand me some award or a coin. Do people really volunteer just so they can have a wall of fame? I hate my awards. I seriously fucking hate them. My husband is so proud and makes sure that everyone goes to see them all framed and hanging. Makes me want to crawl in a hole and die. You can sum up why I do all this volunteering in a few words: To know what is right and do it not, that is sin. . . I don't need or want an award or recognition for just being who I am and trying to do the right thing--trying to live by the Army values. I am a soldier's wife--the proud wife of an NCO and I expect nothing less of myself.

So I get to go to this ceremony thing and attempt to not come across as an ungrateful, ungracious bitch. . . Oh joy. . .

A Monty Python Homage

Hello all you Monty Python fans! And if you do not know who Monty Python is, all I can say is "Shame on you!" That's tantamount to blasphemy! Having said that, I would like to regale you all with one of my all-time favorite Python skits and I would like to dedicate it to our fan-fucking-tastic rear detachment! (Can you taste the sarcasm??)

Perhaps one of the most interesting words in the English language today, is the word fuck. Of all the English words beginning with f, fuck is the single one referred to as the "f-word". It's the one magical word. Just by it's sound it can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love. Fuck, as most of the other words in English, has arrived from Germany. Fuck from German's "fliechen" which mean to strike. In English, fuck folds into many grammatical categories. As a transital verb for instance, "John fucked Shirley". As an intransitive verb; "Shirley fucks". It's meaning is not always sexual, it can be used as an adjective such as; John's doing all the fucking work. As part of an adverb; "Shirley talks too fucking much", as an adverb enhancing an adjective; Shirley is fucking beautiful. As a noun; "I don't give a fuck". As part of a word: "abso-fucking-lutely" or "in-fucking-credible". Or as almost every word in a sentence: "fuck the fucking fuckers!". As you must realize, there aren't many words with the versatility such as the word fuck,as in these examples used as the following words;
- fraud: "I got fucked"
- trouble: "I guess I'm really fucked now"
- dismay: "Oh, fuck it!"
- aggression: "don't fuck with me, buddy!"
- difficulty: "I don't understand this fucking question"
- inquiry: "who the fuck was that?"
- dissatisfaction: "I don't like what the fuck is going on here"
- incompetence: "he's a fuck-off!"
- dismissal: "why don't you go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself?"

I'm sure you can think of many more examples.
With all these multipurpose applications, how can anyone be offended when you use the word?
Use this unique, flexible word more often in your daily speech. It will identify the quality of your character immediately. Say it loudly and proudly:
FUCK YOU!

The Military Wife

This is for all the military wives going through deployment. It may feel like no one knows what you are going through or that you are not appreciated. But we military wives are stronger than most people could ever imagine and more amazing than most people could ever hope to be. We are an Army unto ourselves and can accomplish anything we set our minds to!

When Dad’s away, Mom’s the Commanding Officer.

When Dad’s home, Mom’s the Executive Officer, coordinating and executing actions for the Command Team..

Keeping track of kids, she’s the S-1.

Collecting the neighborhood news and relaying it to Dad, she’s the S-2.

Making plans for the entire family and training the kids, she’s the S-3.

Stocking food and supplies, she’s the S-4.

She answers all family correspondence and makes appointments for Dad, which makes her the Adjutant.

Worrying about the family budget makes her the Comptroller.

Paying the bills and accounting to Dad for the paychecks makes her Disbursing.

Looking for a new place to live when we move, she’s like Billeting.

Assigning kids chores, getting them fed, bathed and put to bed, she’s our First Sergeant.

Serving the food and doing dishes, she’s the Mess Hall.

Carrying small children, she’s the Ammunition Handler.

Driving the family to appointments, she’s the duty driver.

Looking like a queen when she goes out with Dad, she’s a Military Man’s Lady.

Shit! Mom's the whole damn Army!!

Work Hard, Play Harder

All the depresssing moments of a deployment have to be tempered by some uplifting or funny thoughts. Lately I've been remembering some of our early days in the Army when I was a witness to some of the wilder moments in Rakkasan-land. You know, the good old days when other units were afraid to be anywhere near 3rd Brigade and replacement expressed deep sympathy to anyone who got orders to be a Rakkasan. This was back before 9-11 and the boys still spent at least four months a year in the field and another month in EIB training. Half the year away from the family learning how to be the perfect infantryman. Talk about hard work.

Then there was play time. The annual Rakkasan Reunion Formal. Holy shit. Military formals are a bit off-putting if you have never been to one, but Rakk Reunions are a blast. It is the standard to show up half lit and if you are a single soldier, you a likely to find yourself involved in the annual "hogging competition." These are greatly entertaining to spouses and the size of the women these boys manage to find never ceases to amaze me. But by far my favorite memory is of the grog. Now the grog is an alcoholic concoction comprised of hard liquor from everywhere the unit has been. So for the Rakkasans, that's booze from Kentucky, Tennessee, Korea, Vietnam, Japan and sand and water from the Middle East. Disgusting. The bowl this comes in is the size of a tractor tire. When you see a chaplain being held upside down in the bowl of grog, you know it's going to be a good night.

Of course, with the alcohol, comes the embarrassing things that fly out of my drunk ass husband's mouth. I thought he would never be able to shock me again after being the Army so long. I was wrong. The last Rakk Reunion, I was pregnant. Very pregnant. We're in a room with a bunch of old Rakkasans from the Vietnam era and my husband is chatting with them in his drunk obnoxious way. He calls me over to join the conversation about sex he has started, and when I get over there, he jumps up on a chair and announces to the entire room, "This is my beautiful wife of 14 years. The love of my life. The perfect Army wife who works her ass off to help my soldiers and their families."

Here I am, thinking that I have the perfect husband. He's so thoughtful and proud of me. Then he finishes what he wanted to say.

"AND she obviously puts out!!!"

Time to go. . .