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The Bonds That Tie

Over at PBS.org I have written a post about the meaningful bonds that are forged during military service… among soldiers… among wives… among parents…

Throughout the course of our lifetimes, we make and break bonds with people. Some bonds are formed in friendship: schoolmates, neighbors, fellow workers. I have close friends from each of those groups. I maintain, however, that the bonds forged in military service are perhaps the strongest of all bonds. Stronger than steel. Stronger than adversity. Stronger than time.

We all know the story of veterans sittin’ around and one says, “No shit!! There I was…” followed by a story of improbability or hilarity, typically punctuated with profanity, irreverent phrases and sordid images. It will end with much backslapping and hearty handshakes. The circle might contain members of a single unit or a single war, or it might contain an assortment of veterans from many of this nation’s conflicts. But they are bonded and tied to each other by the commonality of their service. Some are bonded by the mettle and the blood of battle. You need look no further than the Illiad or the St. Crispen’s Day speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V for evidence of the emotional connection these men share.

[snip]

Some of my closest friends today are people I didn’t know before my son deployed. We met via military blogs (including my own) and private online Internet forums established by parents of soldiers — one by a Third Infantry Division parent, another established by military moms for military moms. These were places to share information, to share worry, to celebrate good news and to commiserate when the news was bad. These were places that let us share this bond, hammered and shaped by our worry for our sons and daughters.

These relationships are equal parts ethereal and practical; as much emotional as they are physical. It involves both the spiritual and the material worlds — prayers and novena candles as well as care packages and cookie recipes. It is an inclusive sisterhood for which we did not volunteer, but in which we are now forever members.

You can read it all at PBS/POV: Conversations on Coming Home

Thanks for coming back to visit! If you would like to write for Parents Zone - please let LAW or TechMama know!

With A Little Help From My Friends

When I first began with the Blue Star Moms, I wasn’t sure about how we were going to get things going as far as packages for the Troops or our Wounded Warriors. Things have moved so fast in a positive direction that I know that being a part of this, even beginning this Chapter, is something I was supposed to do. I know that may sound silly to some, but I am a firm believer that if you are meant to do something in life then the Universe will allow you to succeed. If you truly want to accomplish anything, feel it in your heart, it will come your way, in one manner or another, you will get what you need. By giving you receive.

Mind you, I have felt helpless many times in my life; when my son was in the Intensive Care Unit at birth, I felt this way. It was up to him to begin to breathe on his own without a respirator, which he did after a few days and now, all these years later he serves his Country with pride. Many times throughout my life I have felt that I could not deal with certain things that have come my way but always, I have been able to come up with the courage to see things through. My palms may get sweaty but I “put on my big girl undies and deal with it.” So, when more Moms began to contact me to join with me on this endeavor, I found ways to get things together, some times overnight! From standing up and speaking to a group of strangers about what a Blue Star Mom actually is, to putting together new member packets for familys, it has been a lot of work. And I have enjoyed every part of it.

However, when it came to sending care packages to our Troops, I didn’t really know how we were going to accomplish this on our own. Where to begin, who to talk to, nothing. I was as new at this as a fresh recruit getting off the bus at bootcamp! We are all new to this still, we didn’t have a lot of contacts except each other and the income/donations were not there yet. The cash donations we have received we have stood many hours in the heat, cold, wind and on hard concrete for. It is the least we can do, in my estimation, just a little discomfort is well worth the outcome. We do this thinking of our soldiers in the heat and cold, far worse conditions then we put up with.

We have been blessed with over 7,000 packets of the instant coffee from Starbucks customers to send to our Troops. We have been able to send handwritten note cards in every single package that we have been able to send to date. These come from those who visit our table when we do things like enduring heat of 103+ degrees at the Annual Chili Cookoff and local dog show. We have had bake sales to raise funds to ship the boxes that we knew that we would eventually, somehow be able to fill. I knew that we were on the right track, I could just feel it in my heart. The angels were listening to be sure!

I received an email from Operation Homefront regarding school supplies for military children to sign up on the website they gave me and was able to list our chapter to receive donations from local Dollar Tree stores. I figured we would receive a little something that we could pass along to the children, even receiving 10 of something would be better off then where we were at the time, with a whole lot of nothing except what we, the moms, were purchasing to send on our own.

Lo and behold, when we received the first call to go and pick up those items, there were at least 15 boxes between just two of the locations chock full of school supplies! We ended up with enough to assist 111 children plus, of various ages and in different locations. We were overjoyed to be able to receive such a generous contribution from the local communities.

Once I saw those coming in, I figured I should get back in the non-profit mode that I used to be in when the boys were in Cub Scouts and see if I could convince another store to do something so I went to Borders Book Store. To my surprise, the assistant manager was a “Navy brat” and they decided then and there to do a book/school supply drive for us. We ended up with over $5,000 in new books, backpacks and other items for the military children to give to them along with their school supplies. What an awesome blessing!

Once the drive for the school supplies was over, we were still wondering how we were going to be able to support our Troops. My own paycheck can only be stretched so far even when I do shop at Wally World and the “D” store. Many of our moms were out of work due to slow downs at their places of employment, like many others and we were all stressing about our children being deployed yet again. What to do, what to do?!?

Then, to my surprise, I received another notification from a local D store. Was I the right person for them to call? They had some care package items that they had collected and wanted to give them to someone and they had my name so could I stop by and pick them up? Taking my pick up truck over the next day, I picked up an entire truck bed of boxes loaded with care package items like hand sanitizer, razors, foot powder, combs, snacks of all kinds, candy and more! I wanted to cry, I was so overwhelmed at the amount of items that I actually needed assistance to pick up the rest.

We sent out 55 boxes on our first campaign, that was over 4 months ago with donations from family and friends. Last night, our third packaging to date, we packaged 150 boxes and actually ran out of boxes to fill. We had donations from not only the D store customers, but also from members of the local Veterans Administration staff, local community members and business owners. People just pop in at our meetings and drop off items for us to send. The local Rotary Club is sending 100 more packages to our Troops with names we have been able to supply to them. A local dental office has bought back Halloween candy and given it to us, over 400 pounds came in last night along with notes written by children from a local school thanking our Troops. A grandma showed up with donations and her teenage grandson, gave me the donations and left him there to help us, she said to give her a call when we were done having him work! He was quite the worker too!

The Army recruiter called me tonight, a local Pastor called him, the church has taken up a collection of items and they wanted to know who to give it to so he told them he had someone who would take it all, he made me laugh when he said he knew just who to call.

I have felt helpless, not knowing how we were going to accomplish all that I had envisioned our chapter doing to support the troops and their families, but apparently there are plans from above to show me that there are many helping hands out there. I wanted to be able to send to more then one soldier, and my wish is coming true. I know that there are many who don’t know how to help so they give, one dollar at a time, to our Troops. By doing this they don’t realize just how much they are helping each of the moms in our chapter, and all of our family members. Their outpouring of love and support is going overseas, each box as full as we can get it. You don’t have to hold a sign in support of our Troops, just go to a local Dollar Tree store and tell them you want to give to the Operation Homefront collection they are hosting.

We will sort, count, bag, and box. We will label each box, fill out the customs forms, load our vehicles and drive to the post office. We will join together, no longer helpless by ourselves, but stronger together in completing these packagings for our Troops and Wounded. With a sense of love and friendship we send those supplies over one way or another and the funds to do so will come to us, one way or another to get this done. We have enough right now to send 100 of those 150 packages to the war zone, we still need more funding to get the rest over in time for Christmas and we still have 10 large boxes that need funding to go to our Wounded in Landstuhl. That of course is my next wish! And I believe, that one way or another, it will come true.

Mamaw
Proud Mother of an American Soldier

PBS/Point of View: Regarding War

A few weeks back, PBS re-launched its Regarding War site and invited a number of bloggers to blog on experiences of reintegration of soldiers to the civilian world. I am fortunate to be one of the bloggers. In my third post (and in the fourth next week) I am addressing some misconceptions on PTSD (next week on some resources).

PTSD looks to be the diagnosis of the decade. Seems everyone has it, or wants to claim it. In the 80s the diagnosis was ADHD… In the 90s, was it narcissism? And now, PTSD: apparently you can get it soon after watching a movie, or years after some bad act. It’s all the rage in the news, and a convenient excuse for bad behavior. Even if someone has never personally experienced the trauma, it seems like they only have to hear about someone else’s trauma, and POOF — they have PTSD! Worse still are those who point to combat stress as proof that service members are the victims of some nefarious plot. If you believe the media and some politicians, every bad act by someone who happens to be a veteran is the result of some neglect or refusal to identify and treat this condition.

They didn’t have Facebook.

I was just thinking the other day about how lucky we are as parents of deployed children to be able to communicate with them during deployment. Do not get me wrong. It is still very hard to sleep with the phone, check email countless times and yes, I am sure we all know what it is like to “stalk” the mailman.

I recently spoke with some Patriot Guard friends who lived through the Vietnam area. They reminded me to be thankful for communication we enjoy these days as they like their counterparts in WWII and other previous wars had rely on a written letter. Skype was far from being a possibility in those days.

Now, we also have the overwhelming influence of Social Networking sights. I can hardly believe I can logon to FaceBook everyday and see pictures posting from the ship. Not to mention the Capt of the ship occasionally will post updates. I search Twitter everyday for info and I have been able to connect with other families with loved ones on this ship. Why, I almost set my 80-year-mother on FaceBook. She declined and just decided to follow the Shutterfly site I have set up where I add all the news stories and pictures I find concerning the deployment.

I saw a tweet from a pregnant wife appealing to the ship to contact her deployed sailor because she is ready to give birth and her husband had not called since the ship sailed. Unbelievably, the ship replied and told her to email privately and the contact person on the ship said he would see what he could do. That did not happen in previous conflicts.

The point is that even though it is still very hard for us to sit and wait, nearly shower with the phone, exhaust every search phrase on Google and make the mailman want to change routes, we are very lucky and blessed. We are all in the boat together as were all the parents, wives, children…before us.

Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay

Care Packages – From Blue Star Mamaw

Soldiers Have Parents??

New to the Army? Help Keep Your Parents in the Loop

If you’ve just joined the Army and your parents aren’t familiar with military life, keep them in the loop with these materials:

• Resources for Parents of Soldiers
• When Your Son or Daughter Goes Through Basic Combat Training

The “Resources…” page provides links to official and unofficial web sites that you might, as a parent, find useful, but also be sure to check out blogs like ParentsZone.org and other military blogs (”Milblogs” — you can find blogs by branch of service as well as those blogs by parents at www.milblogging.com).

As the parent of a soldier, you should become familiar with some of the other resource information contained on other Army and Dept. of Defense sites for future reference… such as the Army Well-Being site and the Military Homefront page.

I’d really like the Army and the other services to produce content specific to parents (or non-spousal family) with the idea that these people are usually remote (away) from their soldier’s military installation and typically have no idea how to contact the installation or chain of command (or even who that might be) in an emergency… or what resources are available to their soldier/sailor/marine/airman/coastie or to the family member (be that a parent, aunt, uncle, sister or brother…) when faced with serious issues involving their child (for example, post-deployment issues). (And, yes, I know that there are those who actually joined the military to AVOID their parents… but every soldier has a next-of-kin somewhere — that are not “in the loop” but should be!)

I did also find some parent-related information for the other services (some official, some unofficial):

for Parents of Marines
A Parent’s Guide to the Marine Corps
USMC – Recruit Training
Marine Parents.com

For Navy Parents
Navy for Moms
Navy Dads

For Air Force Parents
Parents of the Enlisted

AF — you could do better… information or links for parents could easily be added to AFCrossroads.

For Coast Guard Parents (nice job CG!!)

For National Guard Families

General informational links for all branches, Guard and Reserves at Today’s Military and Military.com

Tags:

Impact of deployment on children

June 30, 2009 · Filed Under Military Parents, National Guard Parents, This & That, deployment · 3 Comments 

I’ve heard the children of the military called the youngest draftees – they are the ones who didn’t sign up for the life as a military brat, they were born into it, or their parent signed up and they were pulled along into it.

My son was a MilBrat – then we got out and he didn’t soak in the military (except for one weekend a month and two weeks a year) until later – then he joined up.  Now he’s out of the Army – Our granddaughter will only get the military lifestyle one level removed, her grandpa Chief is in and will be for a while.

I’ve talked to military spouses, who are coping with deployments, but watching as their children have trouble getting through yet another absence by that service member.  It’s hard to watch your child hurting – and it’s agony to watch your child’s child in pain.  The military has realized there is a problem.

Deployments since fighting began in Iraq and Afghanistan have affected nearly 2 million military children, and about 234,000 of those children currently have at least one parent deployed, according to a 2007 Defense Manpower Data Center report.

The Defense Department has programs for the children, as does Military OneSource; We all know about the Sesame Street DVD and I’m told having Elmo tell you something is very special (direct from the granddaughter’s mouth!) The Military Child Education Coalition website looked promising to me.

As grandparents of military children, we have a special role in their lives.  I remember that when we moved constantly (when my father was in the State Department), my grandparents were my constant, their house was always the same, I could find everything and my Omi was a rock who was there, always.  It’s an important role for us – any advice for your fellow MilParent?

LAW

Tags: deployments, military children, military grandparents

Signs of Respect

June 11, 2009 · Filed Under Honor Their Service, National Guard Parents, Parents News, Proud Mom 3, deployment · Comment 

In Sullivan Illinois, the residents have found a great way to honor their military residents serving in the US Armed Forces. When many were deployed to Afghanistan in 2004, the soldier’s names were nailed to lampposts. As more and more young people volunteered in Sullivan, population 4,400, the parents decided to keep up the tradition.

More than a hundred town residents have served abroad and dozens more will still deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan.  Some names have hung more than once while spouses and siblings are displayed two to a post.

This is the town’s small, informal way of showing its respect to those members of the community who for the most part joined the military out of patriotism.

In Sullivan, the effort to support military personnel and their families includes churches, care package packing parties and coffee klatches. The wonderful thing here is the residents have taken their support an additional step by putting up the signs and honoring their military even further.

As we military family members know, support is imperative during deployment. It is hard for non-military people to understand the fear and helplessness when a loved one deploys for a war zone. The signs are a great way of reminding people on a daily basis that someone’s family member is in harm’s way and protecting each and every one of us.

Since my son will soon be deployed my need for support and understanding grows with each passing day. I think doing something like this in my hometown would be a great comfort to me. Maybe since this story is out other towns might want to do something like this too.

Some might worry about putting a loved one’s name on a sign in public. Let’s face it there are a few crazies out there. I suggest family members or the actual service member have the option of just using their first name. The whole world does not necessarily have to know the service member’s whole name and this might bring a little piece of mind to people who may be skeptical.

So I say spread the word and maybe this could grab some momentum and before we know it many towns and cities could be demonstrating yet one more way to say thank you to our brave military.

ProudMom3

Tags: deployment, Military Parents, Respect, Sullivan, support

Deployment – Parent’s style

May 29, 2009 · Filed Under Military Parents, National Guard Parents, Survey, This & That, deployment · 1 Comment 

I was asked to post this – and it sure would be great to get OUR voices and experiences heard.  Dr. Crow has gone through deployments of her son to Iraq and her daughter in law to Afghanistan, so she understands.  But to help her tell our story, get the information about what deployments are like for the parents of these men and women – she needs our help.

****************************

Parents of Service Members who have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan….

Your input is needed to understand the experience of a parent who has had (or currently has) a son or daughter deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Parents are very much a part of the military family and yet very little is known about their experiences and how they support their deployed adult children. Dr. Janet Crow, an assistant professor of Child and Family Studies at Baylor University, is conducting a survey of parents of service members to add your perceptions to what we know about how military families cope with deployment. If you are interested in participating simply go to: https://www1.baylor.edu/surveys/crow/deployed_child.htm. You will find a complete explanation of the study and will be able to add your experiences by completing the anonymous online survey.

*******************

Please – go over and give her your input.  Thanks!

LAW

Tags: Baylor study, parents of deployed military

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