New Years and New Beginnings

Every year the New Year seems to bring on feelings of inadequacy. Most people will reflect on their year and decide what they could have done better. They begin to make resolutions to change major aspects of their life starting on January 1st. For some this can add pressure and obligation associated with the New Year and that pressure can build till some people end up in emotional and mental crisis.

Suicide attempts seem to increase around the New Years due to added pressure and the stress of the holidays. The last thing we want to see in our nation is a slew of veterans who have committed suicide due to receiving very little help or understanding from their families and friends. I think maybe it would be good for the military community to embrace a new tradition around the New Years. No Resolutions. No reflection. No expectations.  Simply a party celebrating the good that happened last year and a hope for a nice year ahead.

If there is something you do want to resolve to change you don't need to wait till the New Year of January 1st. You can start your New Year at any time. You can decide there is a new chance to change something every new day, every new hour, every new minute.  And the best thing about this way of looking at things is that the new resolution doesn't have to hold you down, it can happen when it was meant to happen.

Cartoon Text w/Party Hats & Confetti Posters by I_Love_Xmas
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The real thing we have to resolve to grow and learn as a person is to resolve to forgive ourselves. Forgive ourselves for surviving when others did not. Forgive ourselves for the hurt or pain we think we have caused to others, real or imagined. Forgive ourselves for not being perfect. So this New Year make it a theme of relaxing, celebrating, hope, and forgiveness. Leave expectations and stress behind, you don't need it.

Remember the theme song for the New Years "Auld Lang Syne"

Here is this Scottish Song written by the poet Robert Burns translated to loosely to English. And remember Auld Lang Since means in emotional context 'old long since", or "days gone by"

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine^† ;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

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Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!

 I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel.  I just don't understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed. - Charlie Brown

When I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas this year I think I finally understood Charlie Brown for the first time. I have always been a very chipper chippy at Christmas. Ideals of cooking smells, Christmas Lights, decorating the tree, and listening to Christmas Music. The past few years I have felt that my Christmas Spirit was slowly slipping away. This year it had almost completely gone. Dealing with my dear warfighter with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and all the little ways it throws wrenches in the works and five children determined to wreck every in of my house caused me to hit a real low point.  I wanted to cry all the time because I knew Christmas was coming and with that the added pressure of meeting the perfect expectations of myself, my friends, and my family.  I knew I could not meet those expectations. 
Our warfighters have different reason for dreading the holidays. They have the memories of people who are not longer with us, who they feel should be there to spend time with friends and family. They do not look forward to the family gatherings with all the loud noises and over stimulation. The expectations of a perfect Christmas weigh just as heavily on them.

Caregivers and warfighters alike pull it together as much as we can, year after year, for the sake of those around us. In the end, though, we are still modern day Charlie Browns and there are many of us quietly suffering in crowds of people.  So how do we get through? I personally start with finding someone to talk with about my feelings. Then after allowing myself a good cry to let out all that pent up anxiety I begin to plan how to make it better. Lastly, I focus on the positive in my life no matter how little. Fortunately for me I have five children to help me focus outside of my own pain.
The holidays aren't going to be easy, but there are ways to avoid our inner Charlie Brown. It takes the type of focus, commitment, and will to survive and thrive that is unique to warfighters and their families. My husband and I used our strength to focus on our children and so far we have had a pretty delightful and happy Christmas. It is this happiness that I wish for each of you.
Merry Christmas!

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Join the Military. Become a Citizen! Or... Not!

The thing about Starship Troopers is that it reflects many of the underlying currents of modern America but it was written in 1959. It is always amazing how authors warn us of the future and we laugh it off as fiction. The civilians of the Starship Troopers world are allowed free speech, assembly, etc. However only public servants who have served can vote and hold office. Obviously there are some flaws there that do not mesh with our current society, but the sentiment of being responsible for your rights gives many of us warm fuzzies inside.  The meritocracy of Starship Troopers is very appealing to those of us who have been exposed to military culture, because that is what the military is all about when it comes to advancement.  You advance to leadership qualities based on your merit and your total ability to be a good leader. At least that is the line the new meat is fed down at the recruiting office.

Propaganda Commercial from Starship Troopers 

The reality we are faced with, unfortunately, is that our warfighters are often times treated as less than a civilian let alone a citizen. They go into a military with an archaic set of rules called the United States Code of Military Justice that rarely gets updated and is often abused by the leadership to break our veterans under the heavy hand of  power hungry megalomaniacs. Modern day military leadership has been using the once honorable UCMJ to hurt our troops and take away the very rights for which they fight to protect. Just as with any set of laws the UCMJ in the hands of a good and righteous leader is a tool to keep proper order and discipline. The UCMJ in the hands of a self conscious and vengeful person with no self worth is a tool to suppress others and accumulate power.


If you take a look at what is happening in our military today you can tell what types of men are in the leadership positions. Men who do not themselves obey the core values of their military branches let alone the  law of the United States that regulates military behavior. They seem to be in charge while the good ones are run out of office. For Example:  General McCrystal was a good man and from my observations a decent leader. He was forced to resign for criticizing our President. The President cited the UCMJ as the reason for him to be booted. He was replaced with General Petreaus who had an extramarital affair, which is also against the UCMJ. His affair was quite open to the intelligence agency who 'discovered' it conveniently when he was going to testify about the disastrous actions surrounding Benghazi. Petreaus did in the end betray us by being as corrupt as the people he most likely punished time and time again using the UCMJ. He was also an example of how the UCMJ can be used as a tool by corrupt leadership to hide misdeeds.

Why do we not allow the protectors of our freedom to have the same freedoms as our civilians? Why do we allow them to be abused by a set of laws and rules that have now become the tool of the corrupt? Why do we as citizens think it is acceptable for Gary Stein to be persecuted for speaking his mind when he has been so willing to die so that we can speak ours? I will tell you why, because our warfighters are not seen as citizens, they are seen as property of the state. They are not hailed as heroes out of respect but out of a need for the citizens of the United States to keep them apart in their own class. We do not fight for them because we have a false sense of patriotism that says they should suffer for us and that we are degrading them if we think they should be treated well. We are told never to question military leadership because we could be helping the enemy and that our warfighters are happy to suffer.

Warfighters are happy to suffer, but never for the simple sake of suffering. If they have to go without food or sleep, they are happy to do so to protect our freedoms. Many have even come to believe it is a badge of honor to have less freedoms while they take up this responsibility.  As a citizen I feel that anything less than full access to our freedoms is a disrespect to our veterans.

 Join the military, become a citizen?  That is what I hope is in the future for our veterans.

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Then, It hit me!

"You have got to be kidding me!"

That was my exasperated cry when I realized that all of the pain I had been through since 2006 had to deal with the fact that my husband, my veteran and warfighter, was simply not treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The emotional upheaval in my house, the fact that he couldn't remember half of what we talked about, and the tension that was always in the air hoping he would not explode was not because he was a jerk after all. The fact that everything in the world was blamed on my failures, was actually not all my fault. And my only reaction to finally having all this fall into place was shock and disbelief.

When I became a military wife I expect that my husband would be gone for long periods of time and that he might come home with some haunting war stories, missing a limb, or not at all. I came in prepared for the basic things all military wives should be prepared for, but I certainly had no idea to expect any of what I have been exposed. The utter shock of what I have observed as a military wife is still taking its time to wear off, if it ever will.

Many warfighter's wives have remained silent for quite a long time about what we have gone through. Keeping our pain within the military community and away from prying eyes. Now a new breed seems to be coming out of the woodwork about two years after I was very vocally criticized for speaking up. No I am not bitter, I say it is about damn time! Many of the warfighter wives turned caregiver feel like they have to take up the fight where their veteran left off, but instead of defending America as a whole, we are defending the defenders. Kind of reminds me of that move "The Watchmen."  Who watches the watchmen? We do.

You will find many blogs now by military wives hoping to relate their lives to that of civilians around the world. To let you see into our private club and welcome you into our community as friends. We have become warriors of words, of public relations, of love, and of activism. We are becoming caregivers for our entire veteran community. Our husbands were left by the government and the people to endure torment, and while we will never know what they went through we are ready to pick up the standard and fight the best way we know how. I am a warfighter's wife!

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