Honouring the heroes

I just watched a report on BBC World news on the repatriation of eight young soldiers, all killed in Afghanistan on the same day. In contrast to our own secretive and exclusionary arrivals at Dover, the arrivals were filmed, in silence, the only sound was a trumpet call and the slow march of the bearers. The families were not filmed. They then had a private service at a private chapel, and all eight hearses set off from the base. They were escorted by police and the route was lined, through the town of Wooten Bassett all the way to Oxford. The town shut down. All the way to Oxford, the route was lined with veterans groups, families, strangers and friends. Flags were dipped as the hearses passed, veterans and current soldiers saluted, children stood with their hands over their hearts and roses were flung to land on the hearses and the road before them.

The entire country paid respect to those young men, to their families, to their Regiments. Respect. No paparazzi dashed forward to take pictures of the widows, no disrespect or protesters were seen. Dignity and respect, sadness and loss were the only emotions I saw on the faces of those standing on the route. As it should be.

LAW

Now THAT was quite a weekend!

Three days of fun, fireworks of all sorts, low humidity and high drama - quite a weekend.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a friend's apartment in Rosslyn, with the most amazing view of DC and the Maryland suburbs and down the Potomac to the airport. The river was packed with boats, the roads were shut down and huge groups of people clustered on the bridges and through Arlington Cemetery and clambered on the Iwo Jima Marine Memorial. The fireworks were fantastic! and watching them burst over the Washington Memorial and the Capitol... amazing! We turned up the music on the TV coverage, after all, what are fireworks without Souza! The trip home was the usual in DC after an event. I waited for about 45 minutes (when the flow of people had backed off to a trickle coming off the bridges and Arlington) and went to the Rosslyn station. And then I waited another hour, but not on the platform, that was way too crowded and dangerous. It looked a little bit like pictures we have seen of Tokyo, people trying to shove onto already crowded trains! but the system was working, and I got home safe and sound.

R&R aka Mid Tour Leave is coming up fast. The suitcase is up in the bedroom and I've started prepacking, pulling together what I think I want to take, pulling together what Chief wants me to bring,(yes, dear, I have the recharger for the camera) The cat met his new friend, who will be staying with him and took to her immediately, plunked himself in her lap and proceeded to demand her attention. That's a plus, having him content with her and not hiding under the futon which is his usual station when meeting new people.

The house disaster is coming together, my handyguy is a miracle worker, got the paint off the kitchen cupboards and spent at least 30 hours sanding the paint off the wood throughout the house. A realtor we had been talking to about listing has said he wants to now that a couple of things have been done or are being done, so keep the fingers Xed. We have renters, who will be moving in at the end of the month, wish us luck there too. The best part? The insurance company is 99.9% certain they are paying for the repairs, which is a HUGE weight off our shoulders and means that we can take our MidTour Leave.

Not to say there hasn't been drama - after all, this is MY life, so there HAS to be drama! The caretaker drama has kept me awake, reduced me to tears more than once, and I've chosen to back off, to respond strictly in a professional manner and refuse to respond and feed the circus.

The Palin drama was and is a feast for anyone on the Internet, that rambling wreck of a "speech" (I put it in quotes, because speeches are usually understandable, and I've heard it at least 6 times in it's entirety, but I still cannot figure out what the hell she said!) and her ongoing "what do you mean you don't understand, you are picking on me, leave me alone/pay attention to me" blathering - well y'all, I just shake my head in amazement.

Hope your weekend was a good one, if you were spending it without your loved one because of deployment or other duty, I hope you had good friends to spend it with.

LAW

Quitter

She is quitting, Sarah Palin is Quitting! If she can't handle being governor, how the hell would she handle being in National Politics?? oh, this is so bizarre, so absolutely her way of doing things... Bye bye, Alaska Barbie.

LAW

Enough already!

ONE more word about Michael Jackson - I'll scream! Even the BBC - my place to go to when US media is driving me mad with the trivial BS - they did wall to wall coverage! So my friend misericorde (I know who she is, but she's shy...) started doing RIP tweets, with a different Navy Casualty in Afghanistan. I picked it up and did the Iraq 2009. Yes, MJ was talented, but batshit crazy, drug addicted and had a penchant for strange behaviour and tantrums that were somehow allowed because "he never had a childhood"..excuse, excuse, excuse for bad behaviour - often close to criminal (if not more than close)

But what talent did THEY have? those men and women on the casualty list? did they sing, dance, write songs? Were they great cooks, comedians, runners, writers, poets, students of history, painters? Why are we forgetting to mourn them? Why are we no longer taking a moment to pay our respects to them?

We do have other problems in this country, anyone trying to sell a house (another post altogether) or find a job will understand that... but these men and women died in the service of their country, their ideals. It is time to remember that again, not just on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, July 4. Every day.

LAW

The road to Suckyville - heads down into the valley

My friend Tucker (if you haven't gone to her site, get your butt over there) talked about Suckyville. Thats the place that all deployments get to - and it is just miserable. I hit the outskirts of town last week, and this week I think I hit downtown Suckyville.

I'm tired - tired of being alone, tired of taking care of everything. When the house was broken into and vandalized, the whole who will fix it, trying to get it cleaned up so we can list it, dealing with the insurance company, was added to the regular crap, and piling on my OCD problem with making reservations for our upcoming R&R... it's all just sitting on my head and driving me batshit. I have a tendency to want to have it all perfect and did too much research on hotels in Edinburgh and Dublin, worrying that I'm spending too much - did I get somewhere nice and clean and quiet? did I get some horrid place that will stink of old cabbage with a disco across the way? I read reviews like crazy - like I said, I went nuts.

Now the whole "rent the house, don't rent the house" decision has to be made, are these prospective renters a nice couple or some meth head bunch who will trash the house some more?

And I don't have the husband to turn to and say "what do YOU think?" He just says he trusts me and my decisions... and I don't trust my own decisions.

Work - that's another FUBAR problem, with an attorney with a severe case of ADHD who is getting ready for vacation - so you can imagine how much time he's spending on anything I need to have done/answered.

Waah, waah waah. I sound like an absolute IDIOT - there are so many people have a worse time, and I'm making my own problems. and I Know It. but for some reason, I cannot dig out of this pit right now. So I think I'll wallow for a while (with visions of baby hefelumps in the mud making me smile) and I hope like hell I can see the other side soon.

OK, grump post over.

LAW

Perspective

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. 1st Class Kevin A. Dupont, 52, of Templeton, Mass., died June 17 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, of wounds suffered March 8 in Kandau, Afghanistan, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. He was assigned to the 79th Troop Command, Rehoboth, Mass.

I have been following SFC Dupont's fight for life at BAMC through Caring Bridge. He touched a chord with me, probably because we are the same age, he was a little younger than my husband. He didn't need to be there, he volunteered to be there, with "his guys". His wife Lisa has been a rock through this, has written in the daily.. and was always strong and sure that "Iron Man" would pull through. His family in Massachusetts held strong throughout!

My deepest condolences to Lisa and the entire Dupont family.

LAW

Iran

I am watching the Iran coverage, and there's a lot of emotion swirling around. A friend of my parents was in the Embassy, all those years ago. He was held hostage, and we saw the crowds roaring, the chanting... and the biggest sound we heard was - Death to America. We worried about him everyday. And I found this - this is our friend, and he's making the exact point I am trying to make as well.

Now Tehran is again boiling over. Twitterers are tweeting like crazy, and the demonstrators are marching again. And there are those who want us, the United States, to make grandiose statements and accuse the Iranian government of fraud. Yes, we KNOW there was fraud, that's a duh.

But we CANNOT say more. We cannot give the present regime any ammunition - we cannot let them use our support to make a point that the opposition is "under the control of America". We are still the Great Satan in Iran. We have a terrible history in Iran, of toppling an elected official and propping up the Shah who was pretty brutal in his crushing of all opposition. We cannot be seen to be doing this again. We cannot.

LAW