B+ to an A-

No, not talking grades.  But personalities.  My personality.  I'm usually pretty laid back, not too wound up in general.  Don't get me wrong, I can get pretty fired up and I try to keep a reasonably organized home.  You get the idea.  The Army is turning me into a freakazoid about details.  Because they never give me any!!

Case in point.  We had some inclement weather in the last few weeks.  Nothing like the winter storms of the Midwest, just enough to make some slick spots on the roads.  And since the mass population around here is driving inept in perfectly fine weather, you know there's going to be dozens and dozens of minor fender-benders around here if there's a trace of snow or ice.  So Fort Bragg likes to preemptively close the base and the schools or delay them so no one has to drive until the snow melts.  I'm only kind of joking here.  By 5pm they had officially put Fort Bragg on a 2 hour delay for the following day because of potentially hazardous conditions.  (The high of the next day was forecast to be 44 degrees - I'm not sure anyone here has been told that ice and snow melt oh somewhere in the 32 deg range.)

My son goes to part-day preschool.  I'm not a total dummy, but if there was a 2-hr delay, he'd only have "school" from 10:30-11:30.  Seems kind of silly, so I called his school to clarify.

The lady at the main desk at school told me that if Ft Bragg schools are on a delay, then he would go for the 1 hour.  If the Ft Bragg whole entire base is on a delay, then school is canceled for the day.  Are you following?  Yeah, I'm not either.  So I tell the lady that the Ft Bragg Facebook page (yes truly, that is where we are to get all of our information from, FACEBOOK) says all of base is on delay so no school tomorrow, right?  I like to clarify, repeat things etc because the story always changes.  The lady says she hasn't heard of base being delayed.  Right.  Of course not.  She didn't know what to tell me so she says call back tomorrow morning. 

Apparently I wasn't the only person they told to call in the morning because it took me 98 tries to finally something besides a busy signal.  The lady I talked to had no idea what the lady from the previous night was talking about.  None.  She's never heard a distinction between school delay and base delay.  Now I shouldn't be surprised by this but it still stresses me out.  These two ladies stand behind the same desk all day and have totally different information to give out.  It's ridiculous.  Long story long, I took the boy to school for 1 hour.  I don't mind that part, the place is right down the street.  I mind that no one has a damn clue what is going on, what the policies are, what to tell people ever!  No consistency, no reliable sources for information, nothing.  These are the scenarios when I'm not so good at just going with the flow.  I want to know where we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to be doing. 

Is that really too much to ask??

All for One and One for All

Did you know that when a soldier gets into some serious hot water, all of the soldiers in his company are in trouble too?  I mean, not legal trouble but here's a example from last weekend.  One guy goes out, drinks a few too many, and starts to drive home.  Stupid, bad decision-making I think we can all agree on.  It happened late on a Friday night, off post.  The guy was arrested by Fayetteville cops.  It doesn't end there though.  The Fayetteville cops call the military police and they go up the chain of command and now the guy is in trouble with the Army too.  Gunnar got a text from his platoon leader (or something like that) on Saturday morning telling him to report to formation at 2pm in uniform.  He said there was a good chance they would be stuck there the rest of the day but he was home a few hours later.  They got yelled at a lot, but that's about it. 

I was really amazed to learn that the military will bring in the entire company of a person when there is an incident.  I understand the need to foster a tight bond between these guys.  But c'mon!  My husband didn't get a DUI!! 

The 1st Sgt warned that the next time there is a serious incident in Delta Company, the consequences will be much more severe.  They'll get a much shorter warning that they need to report to the unit on a day off (this one makes me nervous because we spend a lot of weekends more than an hour away).  He even threatened to make them all live at the unit for 2 weeks if DUI's continue to be a problem. 

I can't believe that they would actually do that.  But at this point really nothing should surprise me about the Army!

Only on an Army Base...

I'm just driving to the store minding my own business and this is what I see....

I'm not really sure what they're talking about.  The only part I can really make out is the "shoot 'em in the head, shoot 'em in the head" at the end.

Gotta love the scenery around here!!!

This is Gunnar's Brain...This is Gunnar's Brain with a TBI

Gunnar definitely was placed in the TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) pipeline, as his doctor called it.  He had an intense array of various diagnostic evaluations with different therapies.  He met with Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Vestibular Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, Optometry and probably some others that I'm missing.  They each did separate evaluations to see where exactly the injury to his brain is.  The injury came from a serious of events in Afghanistan last spring including a fall resulting in loss of consciousness, a grenade going off above his head and a few other things that all happened in a short amount of time.  The Army has been less than supportive of him making and attending these appointments.  I've been really disappointed in the way it's all been handled.  The injury will be almost a year old by the time he actually is treated for it!  And while he was at one appointment, his First Sergeant was texting and calling Gunnar, telling him to get up and leave the appointment.  Unbelievable!!! 

The assessments were done about a month ago, and the next step is all of those therapists getting together, comparing notes and coming up with a treatment plan.  This step has been postponed twice so far because of stupid reasons. 

The thing about a mild TBI is that Gunnar is able to function mostly pretty well on a day to day basis.  He has intense headaches and some short term memory problems (hard to tell if that's because he's a guy, or a guy with a mTBI sometimes) and balance problems.  It's not severe enough to make it impossible to do his job, so it's not taken seriously by the guys in charge. 

I'm not sure when the appointment has been rescheduled for this time, but I'll let you know what they say...

Shame on me!

I seriously doubt anyone still reads this little blog 'o mine.  Sheesh it's been 2 months!!!  Not sure how that happened.  I just plain didn't know what to say.  I've got plenty of stories and pics and even a silly video up my sleeve that I'm going to post.  But life in the last two months has just been complicated, and messy and frustrating, and nothing I can explain here.  But it's looking up and it's a brand new year, right?  Here's to 2011 kicking 2010's ass.


I'll be back soon with something to actually tell you about.

Army Ball

I've heard a lot of military balls in the past so I was really excited to go to my very first one last night.  There have been only a few times I get really dressed up and fancy and go out.  A military ball is a huge deal.  I have no idea how often they have these bashes but I'm guessing usually about once a year.  Our ball last night was held in Fayetteville at their one and only coliseum/convention center type of place.  I was a little surprised how nice everything actually was.  The food was good, the tables were beautiful, everyone was dressed their very best.  Girls go all out for this sort of thing and aside from a few dresses not much larger than a band-aid paired with clear heels (hello stripper!  excuse me, exotic dancer) the ladies were all dolled up.  Lots of girls had their hair done and looked like they were going to prom, but it was fun to see so much fanciness all in one place.  The guys, of course all looked exactly the same in their dress uniforms.  Here's a few highlights of our night.

 On our way to the ball.  See my cute gloves?  Yep, I've been watching a lot of Mad Men lately.

 Waiting forever in the foyer area, before we could be seated at our table.

 It was really dark in the ballroom.

 Gunnar and his boys.

 So much love in the Army!

 This is where things start to get a little weird...

 This guy with Gunnar is Doc Carr, he was the medic for their platoon in Afghanistan.  

 A-R-M-Y = L-O-V-E

 This sweet baby-faced boy they call the "War Baby" because he was the youngest in the platoon.  

He doesn't even look old enough to drive! 

 Now that is a hug!

All in all, we had a really great night.  We were home shortly after 9pm to pick up the kids from the sitters, even though the ball was still going on till midnight at least. It was so nice to meet all these guys that I've heard so much about, and finally put faces to the names.   

Salad Bar, Explained

Alrighty here goes, I'm going to attempt to explain all the junk on Gunnar's uniform. I'm warning you now, on a scale of 1-10 my photo editing skills hover in the 2 - 2.5 range so I'm going to add a nice diagram to the following pics.  Hopefully at least some of this will make some sense to you (because it sure doesn't to me).

A - French Fourragere, all soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division wear these
B - Branch Affiliation, these are the cross rifles of the Infantry
C - Combat Infantryman's Badge, awarded to Infantrymen that are actively engaged in combat with an enemy  
D - Army Commendation Medal, (Gunnar's has an oak leaf cluster, which means he's been awarded 2), Gunnar got these for his performances in a firefight in Afghanistan
E - Army Achievement Medal, (Also with the oak leaf cluster), performance based just for doing his job and doing it well...twice, apparently
F - Good Conduct Medal, for never getting in trouble 
G - Reserve Component Achievement Medal, from the good old days when Gunnar was in the National Guard, and not sucking at it
H - National Defense Ribbon, awarded to everyone in the Army during a time of conflict
I - Afghanistan Campaign Ribbon, for soldiers deployed to Afghanistan, the bronze star signifies 1 year over there
J - GWOT or Global War on Terrorism, awarded to everyone currently serving in the military during the War on Terror
K - NCO Professional Development Ribbon, NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) school which is called WLC or Warrior Leadership Course
L - Army Service Ribbon, soldiers get this when they complete Basic Training.  They have lots of non-PC names for this one, since it's a rainbow and all 
M - Overseas Ribbon, stationed overseas
N - Afghanistan ISAF, that's the International Security Assistance Force or NATO's equivalent of a thank you card
O - Airborne wings, this is Gunnar's jump status, meaning he can jump out of a plane any time they want/need him 
P - Air Assault Badge, he got this one back in '93 for repelling out of a helicopter
Q - Expert Marksmanship Badge, specifically with a carbine device.  That means he's a damn good shot with an M4    


Alrighty - on to the right lapel...

A - Unit Crest, It's actually the same as "D" on his uniform.  It's the second of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment.  Their crest is a dragon/lion thingy...here's a close up...it's lots of funny to me.  "Fury From the Sky" is their motto.  They sound very angry.

 Back to the diagram...
B - Blue Cord, awarded to soldiers when they complete their Infantry school training
C - US Insignia, with baby blue disk.  Only Infantry gets a disc (of any color) beneath the US pin
D - See A
E - Presidential Unit Citation, Awarded to the 508th by FDR for invading France
F - Combat Patch, given to 82nd Airborne soldiers serving in combat zone
G - Rank, Gunnar is a Specialist, currently (though he is preparing for a promotion soon)

Other stuff that didn't make it to the diagram:  Valorous Unit Citation, awarded for 508 performance in Afghanistan.

And there you have it.  A tour of a soldier's uniform.  Whew, I'm going to have a glass of wine now.