13 Months And Counting - But This Ain't My Mom's War!

Lord, how I live for this moment! But despite how much I want to watch my soldier come down that ramp, home & safe when his mission is finished, I also KNOW how spoiled I am when it comes to having a loved one at war.

I think about my biological mother who's final contact via the Army was an impersonal telegram informing her that her daughter no longer had a Father.

I think of my adopted Mother, who read casualty lists posted daily in her small town. Who was lucky to receive a letter every few months from Dad's Hell Hole in the "Crimson Imjin" - and how those letters were SO special to her. (I still have every one of them, wrapped in ribbons, just as she left them before she died.

And then I look at me...I have email contact with my soldier at *least* 5 times a day. (One of the benefits to being a 1SG.) We IM each other with audio capable web cams almost nightly unless he is out somewhere doing what he does. (That's one case where the don't ask/ don't tell policy works: I don't ask and he doesn't tell.)

So much as I miss him, I have NOTHING to bitch about compared to those fine women who came before me.

Ladies...You have my humble gratitude for demonstrating a strength most no longer posses.