Letters from Home

I began writing Gunnar letters before he ever left for the Army. I know how much soldiers appreciate letters and even though we can text and talk, there's just nothing like getting a letter in the mail. Gunnar didn't have an actual address for the first week and a half so when he finally gave me his address I had over a dozen letters to send to him already. He was more than shocked the first day they had mail call and he had a ton of letters, way more than anyone else in his platoon. It really made his day. He received another 7 letters yesterday in the evening. I think he is beginning to get quite a reputation. He said seeing the stack of mail for him had him grinning from ear to ear and was a real emotional booster. I never run out of things to write either which is sort of funny because it's hard to distinguish one day from another these days.

I think in my very first blog post on here I had preferences for where we will be stationed. I've since decided I absolutely could not possibly care less where they send us to. More than anything I just want our family back together and they could send us to anywhere they please and I will be the happiest girl in the world. It's been about 2 1/2 weeks into the 15 week separation and I'm ready for it to all be over.

Gunnar mentioned yesterday that the probability of him being deployed is quite high. And the average ship out date post Infantry school graduation is 72 days. I guess I always knew the liklihood of him being deployed is fairly high but I just figured we would have some time together as a family, some time to get settled God knows where first. It looks like that might not be the case. I seriously don't know how to handle that right now so I'm not going to think about it yet. Channeling Scarlett O'Hara - "I'm not going to think about that today, I'll think about that tomorrow."

Gunnar's actual training is underway now. I think he enjoys a lot of it. He learned to give an IV yesterday and was quite good at it. He is doing combat drills and lots of physical training. He pulled a hamstring earlier this week and has been in a tremendous amount of pain, likely because he hasn't sought any treatment. It's so hard to know that he is hurting and I can't be there to help or even to offer comfort of any kind. This is the type of thing I don't think I'll ever get used to.