Cards for Soldiers

Many people want to remember the soldiers during the holidays. Did you know there are many organizations with programs to help do that? And then there are the hoaxes--for every 10 good things, there is someone out there doing one weird thing, isn't there? So right off the bat, read this information about where NOT to send cards, letters and packages. 


Here are some legitimate places you can work with:

Operation Write Home organizes mailings for people who want to send homemade cards to soldiers. It is too late to send Christmas cards, but they work year-round, and soldiers like mail year-round too :)





Welcoming our soldier home in 2003.

The Red Cross operates Holiday Mail for Heroes Hurry--the deadline is December 10th! Just to speed things up, here's the mailing address:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
PO Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD
20791-5456

Let's Say Thanks partners with Xerox Corporation to send personalized postcards to soldiers. Go to their site, click on a design created by a US child, write a message, and click send. That's so easy!

Soldier's Angels sends cards and care packages to soldiers and their families. You can adopt a soldier's family or send a backpack that can be adapted for soldiers with injuries or disabilities, among many other services offered by this organization.

Want to send a soldier a pre-paid calling card so he or she can call their family from overseas? AAFES has a program to help you do just that.

Sending him off again in 2007. Thank goodness he is now in a supposedly non-deployable unit.

Conversation with a Soldier's Sister

Yesterday I went out for the first time, to a doctor's appointment in Spencer. After the doctor we went to Wal-Mart to pick up some things. Spencer is not my usual shopping town and I felt safe knowing I would not be likely to meet anyone I know face to face. I am just not ready for that yet.

We stopped at the photo center to see about scanning some photos sent to Larry by a friend he served with in Vietnam who recently got in touch after 40 years. The photos were in an album, stuck to the plastic cover and to the backing. The girl at the photo center advised us not to attempt to remove the pictures from the album because they would be damaged, and we reluctantly had to agree. So we'll scan them at home, knowing the quality will be poor because the plastic covering can't be removed.

As we discussed the photos the photo center girl commented that these were military pictures. Larry told her where he had gotten them.

She said, "My brother was in Afghanistan. He was killed there."

I stopped in my tracks. Had I heard correctly? Yes, I had. She told us her brother's name and I remembered reading about him: Jamie Nicholas, serving with the Special Forces. And not just Jamie: his brothers and a sister-in-law have also served. Clay County, his home, mourned his loss and honored him well. I followed the news about him closely, because Clay is not so far away; all solder's mothers share the grief of those who lose their children to war.

Our conversation was not tearful but on the edge of tears--pain mixed with pride as she talked about her brother, his commitment to his military career and his family, and about her parents and other siblings. My heart went out to this mother and father who not only lost their son, but did so in a land far away--and saw another son off to the same war just a few months later.

I went to Spencer to avoid meeting others who would offer condolences that I could not handle; instead I found myself sharing memories with a stranger so many years younger than me, but no stranger to sorrow. We are never alone on this journey, are we?

Father and Son Salute

A young veteran watches the veteran's day parade in downtown Charleston with his young son. I was struck by the solitude of the soldier in the crowd.

Memorial Day Service Respects Troops Lost in Iraq

An ecumenical, interdenominational Peace Memorial Meditation Service will be held on Monday May 26 at 2 p.m. at the Rost family farm on Rost Road exit off of Route 50, located 9.6 miles east of the I-77 interchange near Dallison, just outside of Parkersburg, West Virginia.

The John Rost farm maintains a field of white crosses as a Peace Memorial to over 4,000 soldiers killed in Iraq in the last 5 years. (Those who have read my blog may remember the photos of Mr. Rost and the field of crosses.)

Area speakers include: Pastor Dave Jackson, Devola OH Congregational; Rev Kathryn Hawbacker, Marietta OH Unitarian; Rev. Jim Lewis Charleston WV Episcopal; Mr. Art Gish, Athens OH Christian Peacemaker Teams; and Fr. John Finnell, Ravenswood WV Catholic Parish. Each is a peacemaker in their own way.

The service will have an inter-faith focus with moments of silent meditation, on desires for peace and diffuculties in achieving it. It will honor those patriots who have paid the ultimate price in service to their country. Sponsor is Mid-Ohio Valley Peace Initiative (MOVPI), a regional secular peace advocacy group whose mission statement addresses the issue of the war in Iraq, and is dedicated to local, national, and global peacemaking.

The public is invited to attend, no charge, and are asked to bring their lawn chairs. Those wishing to bring an optional picnic lunch are welcome to set-up on the lawn before or after the service. Those who are able are asked to stay after service to assist in a work party to help maintain the thousands of crosses in place. For more information, contact Lynn Cady in Marietta at 740-374-2969 or Ray Foss in Parkersburg at 304-428-5056.

Too Terrible to Imagine

What is there to say to a mother who has lost her son?

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200803180645

And what to say to the mother who lost two?

http://video.ap.org/v/Legacy.aspx?partner=en-ap&g=738055ec-02de-47fc-8e99-85cc1770edb3&f=WVCHG&mk=en-ap

I have no words to express it. There are no words.

How many have been lost in your state? Go here to find out.

Military Family Leave

I received a notice at work that FMLA is now extended to the qualifying family members of soldiers in certain situations.

I thought that there may be many others out there who need this information. Having seen several of my sons off to service numerous times, I'm glad to see this being enacted. (Son Derek in the photo, being promoted last Fall in Iraq-he's on the right).

I know nothing more about this than what is included in the notice below. There is a link at the end to more information.

NOTICE: Military Family Leave

On January 28, President Bush signed into law the National DefenseAuthorization Act for FY 2008 (NDAA), Public Law 110-181. Section585(a)of the NDAA amended the FMLA to provide eligible employees working forcovered employers two important new leave rights related to militaryservice:

(1) New Qualifying Reason for Leave. Eligible employees are entitledto up to 12 weeks of leave because of “any qualifying exigency” arisingout of the fact that the spouse, son, daughter, or parent of the employee is onactive duty, or has been notified of an impending call to active dutystatus, in support of a contingency operation. By the terms of the statute, thisprovision requires the Secretary of Labor to issue regulations defining “anyqualifying exigency.” In the interim, employers are encouraged to provide thistype of leave to qualifying employees.

(2) New Leave Entitlement. An eligible employee who is the spouse,son, daughter, parent, or next of kin of a covered servicemember who isrecovering from a serious illness or injury sustained in the line of duty onactive duty is entitled to up to 26 weeks of leave in a single 12-monthperiod to care for the servicemember. This provision became effectiveimmediately upon enactment. This military caregiver leave is available during“a single 12-month period” during which an eligible employee is entitled to acombined total of 26 weeks of all types of FMLA leave.

Additional information on the amendments and a version of Title I ofthe FMLA with the new statutory language incorporated is available on the FMLAamendments Web site at: at http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/NDAA_fmla.htm

I wonder why...

I wonder why no one in the state roads department has figured out that if you use salt on the roads in winter, you are creating one giant salt lick for deer all over the state? It should be no surprise that they're attracted to roadsides--hunters have put out blocks of salt to attract deer for years. I wonder if using salt was the idea of auto body shops and insurance companies?

According to one source, there were almost 500,000 deer-vehicle accidents annually in 1995. Certainly that number has increased with the deer and auto population. Search online and you will find any number of scholarly research papers about this topic. I've yet to find one that mentions the use of salt as a possible contributing factor.

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I wonder why blaze orange was chosen as the color for safety and visibility in the woods? According to Terrace L. Waggoner, O.D., in the most common form of color-blindness, "Red, orange, yellow, and yellow-green appear somewhat shifted in hue ("hue" is just another word for "color") towards green, and all appear paler than they do to the normal observer."

(His webpage makes for interesting reading, and give easy to understand explanations for what colorblindness is and how colorblind people see color. You can even take a color test there.)

Between 5 and 8 percent of all men are colorblind, yet men comprise about 84% of the hunters in the woods (Out of five sons, three are colorblind. Two of those three are active hunters).

What those statistics mean is that a fair number of colorblind men are out in the woods in the fall when the leaves are a confusing variety of red, oranges, yellows and greens, and they're carrying highpowered rifles. It's an accident waiting to happen. So who picked blaze orange as a "safe" color?

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I heard on the news yesterday that a company is devising uniforms for combat troops that have built-in tourniquets. The idea is that an injured soldier will be able to deploy the device quickly, preventing a large loss of blood and possibly saving lives.

I am all for saving soldiers' lives. But what I wonder about is: if all the companies making weapons, and all the people starting wars were to focus all that energy on sustainable peace instead, wouldn't the soldiers benefit a lot more than putting them in harm's way with built-in tourniquets?

I know--I dream. But someone has to.

Enough wondering. Time for bed.

Pictures from Derek's Promotion to First Sergeant

Derek was promoted shortly after he arrived in country. This promotion takes him to the top of the enlisted man ranks, I believe, although I'm not very versed in military things. It's good to see him laughing and smiling--mothers look closely for things like that, signs that their sons and daughters are safe. Derek is with the 111th Engineers. (I've probably got these pictures in the wrong order.)

Where in the World is Tikrit, Iraq?

Click on the map for an enlarged view

It's the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, north of Baghdad and along the historic and ancient Tigris River--the cradle of civilization, or so I was taught in school.

Now my son is there, in a country that seems more concerned with destruction than history.

So here, somewhere, is where he is living and working. At least it helps to know where in this world he is.

It seems like a very long way away.

US Route 33 and the Long Way Home

We took a meandering route home from Pittsburgh and the Three Rivers Storytelling Festival . A stop at son Aaron's home in Fairmont, then on to our favorite road--US Route 33 across the center of West Virginia. The way is dotted with tiny communities--like Pickle Street (name derived years ago when a wagonload of pickle barrels overturned in what was then a rutted wagon track of a road), Stumptown and Sand Ridge.

We made several other stops along the way. I'll post the one at Lambert's Winery in a separate post.

This gravestone shaped like a tree has always intrigued me. Today we took the time to stop and look at it and others in the cemetery by the old octagon-shaped church (I thought I'd surely find a photo of it online, but no luck. So next time, a photo of the church--it's really a treasure). I wonder if the man it commemorates was a timberman?


In the same cemetery, my husband found this simple stone on the grave of a Confederate soldier, a member of the horse artillery named John B. Dawson.

Further along our journey, we noticed a sign in Spencer, WV that we'd not noticed before. "Civil War site," it read and an arrow pointed to a road that I thought led only to Wal-Mart.

We followed the road, that turned quickly into a rutted dirt track, to a parking area, then walked another 1/4 mile or more to the top of a hill to see what might be there. What we found was a Civil-War era graveyard, serenely looking over a stupendous view of Spencer and surrounding areas.

Also on the site: the ruins of the home of the Farm Superintendent of the former Spencer State Hospital for the Insane.

The house apparently burned, but the stonework is beautiful, with many arches, and a fireplace still intact.

Evidence of other visitors--raccoon tracks in a mud puddle.

At journey's end--a favorite spot on the porch to think about what we'd seen. Graveyards make us introspective, don't they? I thought about the many veterans' graves we'd seen, from different wars, all side by side in the cemeteries. I wondered about the many stones at Sand Ridge from 1922--what happened that year? An influenza epidemic?

Those thoughts (and a writing prompt on the WV Writers Roundtable) led to this poem:

Follow Me Home

Follow me
to mossy graves of soldiers
from old wars long past
and soon forgotten

Follow me
to farms and land abandoned
where fireplaces stand
to mark their place

Follow me
along a lonely highway
that traces a course
through history

Follow me
on US Route 33
through Pickle Street, Linn,
and Leatherbark

Follow me
remember your ancestors
who lived, worked, died
and left small trace

Follow me
along this twisting two-lane
into the shadows
follow me home

Roller Coaster Week

It's been like that--like riding an emotional roller coaster. Good times with grandkids, great storytelling events that left me with adrenaline highs, then today, waving goodbye yet again to a plane full of soldiers.

They'll go back to Wisconsin where they've been training for the past two months, then in a couple of days they'll be on their way to Tikrit, Iraq. I was astonished at the age of the unit--I learned from some of the wives there that the average age of this group was 40! The two ladies I talked to had husbands who would be 60 years old when they return. Somehow I envisioned our armed forces as young--I thought my son, at 35, was older than most of the men he'd be serving with but such is not the case.

The year will pass quickly. We'll have his kids over here, do things with them, and make plans for when he returns. It will be okay. We'll get through it, like all the other military families who have to do this. I admired one lady today, pregnant and smiling as she waved her husband away. Now that is courage. Sure she cried a little, but she held on until the end and I will keep a picture of her in my mind. I know her soldier is proud of her, as she is of him.

I took no pictures today. We've done this once already, and today I just wanted to be there, to help the kids, and to try to keep a smile on my face. For the most part, I succeeded. Now my next job--keep in touch with him via email, teach the kids how to email, and keep them as busy as I can, and surrounded by love.

One More Goodbye

They leave tomorrow, after two months of training and preparation. Goodbye, soldiers, and Godspeed to you all. May you all return safely to your families and homes.

One More Goodbye

With sadness too deep for the tears
that dam in my throat
I stand strong,
nerves frayed but smooth on the surface
like threads pulled so taut the broken edges do not show--

I cannot cry, I cannot rail and scream
because to do so would cause distress
for the one who must leave for a war
that seems to have no end, no purpose, no final goal
of victory against an enemy I cannot even name--

and yet my son must go
while I wave and smile
and break apart inside

Haley's Poem

Off You Go

I saw you walk to the plane.

I wait while the plane fires up.

I feel tears fill my eyes.

I watch the plane take off.

And I remember you are in it.

I look at the people around me.

And all I see is people crying.

WV Writing Conference: Part 3

I left after my second session to go to a cookout at Derek's. It was comforting to be with him as he finished packing for Iraq, played with the kids and finalized all the details of his deployment. It was a good evening, lots of conversation, the kids happy and playing hard, a few neighbors stopping by. We left around 8pm so he could spend the rest of the evening with his children and his girlfriend, and returned to the conference.

I'd missed the awards banquet to go to Derek's, so it was a pleasant surprise to be greeted with congratulations on my winning entries. No one was sure exactly what I'd won, but that my name had been called several times. We listened to Pops Walker's blues and then moseyed over to the bonfire.

That's when the real fun started. As people gathered, conversations and music began to fill the night air. Andrea Parkins, Suzette Bradshaw and I began comparing the ballads we knew and how our versions differed. I've never had the opportunity to do that with other singers before, and it was exciting. We sang, talked, held Andrea's daughter til she slept, and sank into the world of ballads. What complete pleasure.

A man named Richard Walker had come to the conference all the way from California to learn more about Appalachian fiddle tradtions, stories and folklore. His questions led to some in-depth discussions of who we are, what we believe and how the mountains have shaped our lives. I wish I had a tape of that conversation. I think it was one of the most interesting I have ever witnessed. We take a lot of things for granted; the whys of who we are don't usually come up in everyday conversation.

One point was abundantly clear. We are of these mountains; they shape us, drive us, abide in us. One lady asked, "How do people live in places where they don't have this connection to the place they live?" I don't have any idea how they do it. I can't imagine living in a place I did not feel deeply connected to.

When we got in the car to return home, I was stunned to find it was 3am. Where had the time gone? We drove home through early morning fog, the moon setting in the west, and were asleep by 4am.

Sunday morning we were up and out by 9am, back to the conference to pick up my materials and my awards. (I learned that I'd won a second, a third and two honorable mentions). Then it was off to the airport to see my son off to Iraq, and drive home to a quiet house, filled with a mix of emotions I was too tired to sort out.

Getting By, One Day at a Time

The troops left one week ago today.

We take it one day at a time. Life continues with the day-to-day of work and family, but always in our minds are the soldiers on their way to the mid-East. The best support for them is the knowledge we are doing well, missing them but keeping home together and the children safe.

And so we go on, one day at a time.

Hannah's Poem: Watching Dad Leave

Watching Dad Leave
By Hannah Ford

Last night


I watched Dad leave to go to Iraq


and it broke my heart to watch him leave.


I wish I could fly with him.


Haley and I cried until we couldn’t see the plane anymore.

Pictures: Deployment of the 111th Engineers in WV

Granddaughter Hannah gettin' it done with Katelyn

Derek, me and Haley (playing the fool!)

waiting...

Support group (daughter Haley, girlfriend Tiffany), also waiting...

Finally on their way. That's Derek on the right, back turned...

and then they were gone. Safe journeys, soldiers.

Fare Thee Well 111th Engineers! Off to Iraq

We saw our son Derek off today for his third deployment to the Persian Gulf. (He is with the Army National Guard, 111th Engineers out of Eleanor, WV in case you want to google it.)

They will go to Fort McCoy in Minnesota for a monthbefore they fly over. At this point it looks likehe'll be stationed at Tukrit, Iraq in Brigade HQ. He was promoted the day before he left to master sergeant. His son Jared got to pin his stripes on during the ceremony, and WV's governor Joe Manchin was there too. We have a picture of very Republican Derek with the Democratic governor--I'll have to frame that!

Today was tough, but there was a real send-off--bands, lots of people and flags and a strong show of support. Even though 99% of the people there oppose this war, the troops were given every bit of support they could have wanted.

Derek's kids did very well today. He should be proudof the way they behaved--no tears and bawling. They were straight up and waving flags until he was out of sight and hearing. Then they let loose, but that's to be expected. What good little troopers.

I tried to remember how many times I've seen Derekoff, but I really can't recall. I will be very glad when he finally retires from the military. But I'm proud of him.

The Beginnings of Goodbye

Tonight the process started. Dinner outside at his house, a small bonfire and marshmallows, working out the little details (who will fix the barn roof? who will finish putting in the new windows? Nathaniel said he'd mow around the pond), hugging the kids, talking.

We'll have a few more times to be together before Sunday. We all have other commitments: I have workshops t do at a writers conference, his girlfriend has to work, the kids have the last day of school, and he will be gone to do whatever it is his unit (the ANG 111th Engineers out of Eleanor, WV) has to do before flying away. But there will be spaces for being together, even for a few minutes.

The time will pass too quickly, there will be things left unsaid and things forgotten. And then the goodbyes will be finished, and it will be very, very quiet.