Today marks the one-year anniversary of the start of my husband’s OIF deployment. One-year ago, I dropped him off, gave him the long goodbye kiss, and left him in the parking lot at Ft. Hood. On April 11, 2007, the Secretary of Defense extended the length of his deployment three more months. Even though it was announced fairly early in the deployment, and we were expecting it; I still can’t help but think with more than a little bitterness; "He should be home now."

But he’s not...

I’m moving next week.  In four days, my house will be swarming with moving guys and barely controlled chaos.  Our house that we’ve lived in for five years will be reduced to 1700 square feet of boxes, crates, cartons, two spaztastic dogs, and one very frazzled woman.  Because I’ve been busy the past month getting ready for M-Day, I haven’t been online much; and next week I won’t be around at all because my internet service will be shut off...

Since yesterday was the first day of summer, I thought I’d dedicate tonight’s Top Comment Diary to a time honored seasonal tradition experienced by millions of us.  

Yes, I’m talking about summer vacations.  The yearly ordeal where a great many of us pack up the famdamily for a week’s worth of quality torture time with the people we love most (or mostly love), in a cramped vehicle, RV or a hotel room.

Some of us may have fond memories of them, while others may have memories that compare to Clark Griswold’s misadventures.  Still others may relate to family vacations as only Stuart Smalley can.

Since I grew up as a farmkid, I didn’t get a "real" summer vacation until my husband and I married...    

After almost eight months in Baghdad, my husband is on his way home for two weeks of R&R.  In less than twenty-four hours, he will be here.  Home.  Safe.  And I get a reprieve from the constant worry that has encompassed my life since he left last fall.  For two weeks I may be able to get to sleep without using sleeping pills, and it's possible that I will get through the night without waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares.  

Okay folks, it's been a crappy week for progressives. It looks like we're going to be doing the Iraq Fandango for a little longer than any of us voted for last November.  I'm trying to pull myself out of a full blown pity party for one at Casa 'Cedes tonight.

So, I thought I would reach back into my archive of personal inspirational stories and give us all what I hope will be, a pearl of wisdom to think about on this eve of Memorial Day weekend.

Tonight, I’m going to share with the Top Comments crowd something I bet no one here would ever guess about me.  (Weezie, sit down and get your smelling salts out, you may need them)....  

On a Friday about two months ago, I went in to a local tax preparation office to make an appointment to get our taxes done.  Inside the office, I was greeted by what seemed like a nice woman.  She told me she had an opening for the following Saturday morning.  She asked me some tax-related questions for her appointment book and then asked me if I had any questions.

I mentioned to her, matter-of-factly, that my husband was deployed, and asked her what else, besides the Power-Of-Attorney my husband signed, did I need to brink in order to file without him being present?  That’s all I asked, and I did not provide specifics as to where or what my husband was doing.  Evidently, that was all the information she needed...

The other day I was driving down the road and I passed a car with a small service flag in the rear window. Because I am a snoop of sorts, I slowed a bit as I was passing so I could read it.  The flag turned out to be a gold star flag, with the words "Our Private Sacrifice" and the name of the vehicle owner’s lost loved one embroidered on it.

This got me thinking about my own blue star flag I have somewhere in my closet.

I drive by two schools on my way to work every day.  This week, the marquis sign out in front of both schools announced that it was "Teacher Appreciation Week."  

Last week, I wrote about reading and books and how important they are in my life.  Since I haven’t seen any diaries on Teacher Appreciation this week, I thought I would devote tonight’s Top Comments diary to teachers and how important they have been to me.  

Except Math teachers; you guys are sadistic.  Math teachers must go immediately to Top Comments detention, do not collect $200; and no, I don’t care how many different amounts of nickels, dimes, and quarters can make up that amount, and I’m not submitting an equation showing all my work.

So there.

Every morning, I wake up and there is a knot in the pit of my stomach.  It’s been there, festering, for over a year now.  It’s such a regular part of my life; that I can’t remember what it was like to not feel fear and worry as regular parts of my daily activities.  

Some days, it feels like too much to bear, and it's all I can do to get out of bed.  I feel like I might be stuck in my own personal "Groundhog Day."  On those days, I have to remind myself to breathe, to put one foot in front of the other, and to keep moving.

By the time my deployment odyssey is over, my knot will probably be a full-blown ulcer.  I envision my doctor telling me at my next exam; "Congratulations silvercedes," you’ve just given birth to a six pound ulcer that used to be your stomach...."

I have always been a reader, I'd read as many books as I could get my eyes on.  Among the memories of my childhood, are the ones where long after my parents had declared it "bedtime," I would hunker down under the covers with a contraband flashlight and my latest book in Walter Farley’s "Black Stallion" series.  I was such a voracious reader, that by third grade, I needed bifocal lenses in my glasses...

Dear Laura:

Last week, you did an interview with Ann Curry, and you announced on the Today show that:  

...believe me, no suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this. And certainly the commander-in-chief who has asked our military to go into harm's way.

A week later, I am still stunned and angry that you were stupid enough to say something like this to a nationwide audience which probably included hundreds of thousands of military members and their families. An audience that I, a military spouse, was a part of. I am angry that your handlers allowed you to say this on national TV.  I’m insulted and offended that you think you can even categorize yourself as one who suffers because of this.  

Get down off the cross lady, somebody else needs the wood...

Her screen name was "Pink Bamboo" on the military spouse board.  But, in late January of 2005, we all came to know her by her first name, which was Emily.  She was a new wife, and very young; she’d been married less than a year to her husband, who had deployed to Iraq from Ft. Lewis, Washington.

I remember the day this all happened because I had been traveling for a work assignment, and had just unpacked at my hotel, logged onto my e-life and hit the military spouse board I belonged to.  I immediately saw the thread titled "My DH was just killed," which was about 60 pages long and counting.  That thread stayed at the top of the forum for days...

On April 11, Sgt. Raymond S. Sevaaetasi was killed by an IED.  He was in my husband's unit.  

In seeing his name and realizing that the unit he belonged to is also the unit my husband is in; I wonder if I saw him six months ago in the parking lot at Ft. Hood as I dropped my husband off for the bus to the airport.

I wonder if I saw his family saying their goodbyes.  I wonder if they, like me, sat in that parking lot while he drew weapons and loaded his ruck sacks filled with gear onto the shipping container. I wonder if they held on to him tight and never wanted to let go?

I wonder if he received carepackages and mail from a Kossack as a result of our carepackage drive for the unit? I wonder, if he did get mail, did he write that Kossack back?

Yesterday, the San Antonio Area Scottie and Westie Rescue held our 6th annual "Texas Terriers & Bluebonnets" fundraiser picnic.  We had around 80 people and 65 dogs on hand for food, fun, prizes, games, pictures and a bagpiper!

Follow me down below to read more and see gratuitous doggie pictures, and more of the fun!

I had a diary all written and ready to go for tonite's "I Got The News Today" edition.  In light of today's expected announcement of the new 15 month tours, I thought I would postpone that diary in order to do some freestyle journaling and expose the raw, bleeding, and battered psyche of an Army wife whose husband is caught up in the extension...

Since my husband has deployed, I haven’t heard one thing from any Family Readiness Group (FRG). None of my husband’s command here at BAMC have checked in on me.  No one from the 1st Cavalry FRG out of Ft. Hood has called to see how I’m doing.  I could be dead or in a hospital somewhere, and my husband wouldn’t know about it (at least not from the military "support" system, anyways).  

So for all those National Guard and Reserve families who have complained about not having any support system because they aren’t active duty military; don’t worry, the active duty family members are getting the shaft too.  

Deployments are when you find out that there is a big difference between "supporting the troops" as a noun, and "supporting the troops" as a verb.  As a military spouse, I’d appreciate a lot more verb and a lot less noun...  

One of the most "fun" things you get to experience prior to your spouse deploying, is having "The What If" talk with your spouse.   My husband and I had to divide this talk into sections in order to make it through all of it, sober.  One night early last fall, we had to stop "The Funeral" talk after two bottles of wine because both of us were suddenly howling drunk laughing over what he wanted for his eulogy.  

The sections of this pre-deployment talk can best be described as:

Part A) The Power of Attorney Talk
Part B) The Living Will Talk, AKA the Please-Unplug-Me Discussion
Part C) The Funeral/Burial Talk
Part D) The Will Talk

You know what?  I am sick and tired of the smarmy "Support the Troops" glurge that litters my inbox every single day.  Don’t think that because my husband is in Baghdad that I’ll think you’re some sort of super-duper-extra-crispy-with-cheese-on-top patriot when you forward this crap to me.  You’re not.  In fact, I think you’re a moron.

I am so tired of it that I’ve decided to fight back, and I’m taking no prisoners.  This crusade is coming soon to an email account near you, so you’d better be ready.  If you’re guilty of thinking that shopping at Target helps support terrorism, that wearing red on Fridays means anything to the troops, that Starbucks hates the troops because they won’t send them free coffee, or that certain restaurants refuse service to members of the military; then you need to keep reading because this little "Army Wife" diatribe is written especially for you.