Hunting Season

I was blessed to participate in family resiliency training this week through the Army. All Soldiers have started going through this, but it's super useful for family members too.

One of the best take-aways from this particular training session had to do with "hunting the good stuff". It's basically a challenge to find three good events in a day. I was asked to keep a journal with a one-sentence reflection of the following:

- Why the good thing happened

- What this good thing means to you

- What you can do tomorrow to enable more of this good thing

- What ways you or others contribute to this good thing

What a neat challenge! I hope you'll try this out for at least a couple days. I'll post some of my thoughts below (because I'm a sharer) :) Even if you don't want to post, I hope you take this challenge...hunt the good stuff!

Grasping at Straws

Hello, my friends!

We've been having a tumultuous time here at LLC for the past few months. Life has been topsy-turvy. People have come and gone. Deployments have ended and started.

In short, we've been leading a typical military life.

Sometimes all this transition leaves me feeling like I should be grasping at straws, hoping to pull the short one so that I can 'win' and get off this crazy ride. Then I take a moment and realize that, while it is enough to make any family crazy, we love it.

In a year, Mr. LLC will be retiring with 22 years in the Navy Seabees. This is a huge accomplishment for him and I'm so very proud. At the same time, we're both having this incredibly smoke-like, sad feeling. It comes and goes with the days, but we've finally pinned it down:

We're sad to be leaving the military.

We are doing our best to pack in every experience we can while we have the opportunity because, Lord willing, our days are few. Maybe that explains the 'grasping' feeling...we are worried that our relevancy is about to change. We won't be as big a part of something anymore. We'll be:

leftovers.

That's enough to make anyone feel a little blue.

I'm hoping that I can turn this into a challenge rather than an anti-climax, though. I am hoping to find new ways to help bond military families from the other side of retirement. Your ideas are precious to me....let's hear them!

We Were Soldiers Once...and Young

Andi here!

I'm so excited to see all the great points Lara shared with us...isn't she a great writer?! LLC is very blessed to have her.

I've been very busy this summer getting ready for an upcoming deployment. Our CO recommended reading the book 'We Were Solders Once...and Young'...so I did.

Let me tell you, my friends: that book changed my way of thinking completely.

I'm a very emotional reader. I become engulfed in the emotion of a story to the point that I find it hard to extract my mind from it long after I put the book itself away. The words on these pages impacted me in a way that I can't fully explain.

The book itself is the account of General Hal Moore's unit during the Battle of Ia Drang. Effectively, this was the first major battle of the Vietnam War. The men in his company faced carnage and slaughter like few of our trrops today even dream of. Their story is not for the weak stomached or fainthearted, but if you push through to the end, you are rewarded with a feeling of affection and understanding for these great soldiers. Their ordeals at LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany pull you in; you hope for their survival and pray for their families. Several times I had to wipe tears off the pages as I read.

I am not a military member. I work in Family Readiness, but I am not in the military myself, nor have I ever been. Therefore, I have only a wife's understanding of the feeling of camraderie and brotherhood that carries brave men and women through extended periods away from home. I am not one of them, only a close observer.

This book gave me a feeling of what it is like to be an insider- to know the hurt and pain of losing someone you were fighting to save. To translate that so powerfully and effectively is a great gift to us as military families. We often sit and wonder what the attraction to this lifestyle is for our warriors. From our standpoint, they are rarely home, work long hours, are consistently in danger, have high levels of risk, miss their kids growing up and always have that chance of not returning to us.

I see now, after experiencing such a life-altering battle through their eyes, that it really isn't about any of those things. It's about honor. Integrity. Knowing that you are the best qualified to do your work and doing it well regardless of the cost. Patriotism. Love.

All these things keep swimming through my head as I revisit ther time in the Ia Drang. When faced with their experiences, I find no confusion in the idea that some of them will never want to relive those times.

This brings me, jolted by inspiration, into the present day.

How many of us live with returned warriors? How many, if any, of us get their whole story upon their return?

This often bothered me when my husband came home from his several past deployments. I would only get part of the story, only hear the funny parts, never the real meat of the mission. I was always angry that he didn't 'trust' me enough to share those experiences with me.

Now I get it.

Some things you just can't fathom unless you were there, in the moment, in the field. In the air. In the tent. In the bunker.

Our place is to hold up the home front. It's called a 'front' for a reason, as it must be defended and cared for in a way much similar to those that our warriors defend. The difference? Just as we tell them 'You have no idea how hard it was while you were gone', they will tell us 'You have no idea the hell that we walked through to get home to you'. And if we care enough, we will accept them at their word because both sides are correct- we will never know the pain of the other. But perhaps...

...that is why it all works.

Pride and...Prejudice? And a free giveaway!

I'm late to the party - but it's better late than never, right?

Andi asked me awhile back to write about something both near-and-dear and also slightly dreadful to my heart…our common threads as military loved ones (spouses, girlfriends, BFFs, moms, etc.)

Why dreadful? I'm a bit protective and proud of my chosen branch, the United States Army. As far as I'm concerned, no other branch comes close!

Why near and dear? Well, long before I strapped on my black Army combat boots, I was counting "Go Navy, Beat Army" among my first phrases. Don't tell my husband!

Seriously, though, growing up Navy, joining the Army, and currently living in an Air Force town really brings some perspective to my world. Honestly, my world IS the military. My mom was the epitome of a Navy wife - and I realize now there's remarkably little difference from what I do now as an Army wife, besides the concept of email and the interwebs, and the way today's world affects the average military family.

So now you know a very little about me - as a bit more, I grew up a Navy kid, I joined the Army, I married another Soldier, I went to war, twice, I got out of the Army (well, I'm still in the Reserves), and I traded my camouflage for khakis and oxford shirts as an Army civilian working with Army families. I live in post housing and I shop at the commissary and I get out of my car at 5pm to honor my flag and nation as Retreat is sounded.

You, like me, probably have your intense pride and commitment to your branch. Don't lose that! My entrenched Navy family and I may not talk much in the first week of December (Army-Navy game…and the Black Knights are going to kick some butt this year! Really!) but otherwise we're a mighty supportive and similar bunch. For what it's worth, here are my thoughts:

(1) It's ok to be proud. Each branch does its part, and the mission couldn't be successful without yours. While I was in Iraq, I may have seen mostly Army Soldiers and Marines on the ground, but it was the Air Force who flew us and our supplies in and out, and it was the Navy providing indirect fire and aircraft support from the surrounding seas. And that's only the broad strokes - I happen to know plenty of Airmen and Sailors who played a much more hands-on role on the ground than their branch typically necessitates. I bet you've known someone who's had a non-traditional role in the military, too. Bottom line, each branch is necessary to make this nation so powerful and successful.

(2) Deployments and training exercises are hard for everyone. Fact of life. Whether it's three months or eighteen months, military families bear a lot of stress and pain while they're separated from their men and women in uniform. Your particular servicemember may be in the air, underway, or boots-on-the-ground, but they're away from you and they likely have some element of risk to their job…and it isn't much fun being left behind. It's easy to compare notes and look down on others ("they don't have it nearly as hard", "can you believe they only got deployed to THAT location", "why do they complain so much, they signed up for this", "if they were smarter they would have joined THIS branch", etc.) but ultimately all our servicemembers signed up to serve this nation. The details are nothing but divisive. Deployments stink, regardless of your branch.

(3) All the branches have become remarkably more supportive of military families since war brought us to the forefront of the media. Terms like "Family Readiness Group" and "Ombudsman" are pretty common in each of our worlds. If it's not common to you, I hope it becomes more common soon! These are great opportunities to volunteer and connect and STRENGTHEN yourself and other military families.

I've been watching a friend's copy of Army Wives and…I'm hooked. I really didn't want to be. I thought it would be hokey (it kind of is) and too much like real life (it is) but there's something about this military life that keeps us going. Andi and I have compared notes a LOT in the last several months and realized how much more effective we are when we work together with folks who have been through it. It's comforting that she's dealt successfully with things that I've struggled with recently, and vice versa. Ultimately, that's why we're here on LLC.

In honor of my first post, I have a free giveaway to offer you! It's a copy of a FANTASTIC book by Jacey Eckhart, called The Homefront Club. This is one of the most practical, honest-to-goodness books I've encountered about military life. It's written from a Navy perspective but works well for any branch, as far as I can tell.

How can you win this copy? Thanks for asking :)

I'm not really well-connected or well-off enough to ship a freebie anywhere just yet, but Military One Source is! Not registered on M.O.S. yet? Super easy. To find yourself this book, click on this link OR follow these simple instructions:

Go to www.Militaryonesource.com

Choose your branch -> Click on Find Information (top right of page) -> Choose Family and Recreation -> Then click on Recreation and Shopping -> Next click on Library -> Nonfiction -> The Homefront Club

While you're at it, check out some of the other offerings. MilOneSource offers up to 10 free books in a year's period. They offer even more resources, like free counseling, financial and health guides, and…well…why don't you just check out the other things yourself when you go get your free copy of The Homefront Club?

It is completely free - no credit card needed, just registration and mailing address. I know because I received a huge package of various books a few short months ago. This is a super website - if you like it, make sure to tell your fellow military pals all about Military One Source.

Looking forward to sharing some of this crazy military life - and its best practices - with you in the future. This is Lara, signing off - have a great week!

Moments of Weakness

Perhaps the most poignant moments in my military life have been the ones of weakness.

There are many, many moments of  frustration, pride, excitement...but those moments of weakness seem to come back and define me as a spouse. (At least to myself.)

Have you had those weak moments? I think we all do at one point or another. You know the one:

You're sitting in bed for the 77th night in a row...alone. That song comes on the radio again- the one about the injured soldier- and you find yourself wanting to stab the radio in frustration. Don't these people know you're alone?! Why would they play that song AGAIN?! Sometimes you think they're just trying to torture you. Deep down, you know that's not true...but it feels that way today. What if he comes home in pieces....or not at all?

If you don't suffer from times of fear and doubt every now and then, I salute you. I'd also like to know your secret. My friends and I talk about these moments every now and then (usually right after one of us has had one). Our conclusion?

These moments of weakness are sent to remind us that we are only as strong individually as we are together.

How do you handle your weak moments?

Transition

The bane of military life? Maybe.

Tranisition comes for all of us in this business. It comes at great times; it sneaks up on us at 3 AM. Every time it comes, it wears a different face. Sometimes a move, sometimes a deployment. A school change, a new command, a news state.

Sometimes it's just a transition in our relationship with our warrior.

I occasionally wonder how other people handle these changes. Family resiliency instructors teach us about the cycle of deployment:

Stage 1 – Anticipation of Departure


Stage 2 – Detachment and Withdrawal

Stage 3 – Emotional Disorganization

Stage 4 – Recovery and Stabilization

Stage 5 – Anticipation of Return

Stage 6 – Return Adjustment and Renegotiation

Stage 7 – Reintegration and Stabilization
 
It's return adjustment and renegotiation that concerns me most.

How many of us have done this:

Homecoming is over. The kids are back in school, DH is back at work and we are all holding together pretty well. It's so great to have him home. I didn't miss the way he throws his dirty laundry everywhere, though. I'll have to talk to him about that. And the way he snores...oh my goodness, he'll keep you up all night. He leaves the cap off of the toothpaste, too. That's so annoying.

I wonder if he has even paid attention to how great everything looks; how hard I worked while he was gone. I bet he didn't even notice that there were no weeds in the flowerbed. Maybe I'll just keep on doing the yardwork...he never really does it right, anyway. It's just another excuse for him to be outside away from us. Now that I think about it, he's been away from us a lot since he got back. He always seems to be heading out with the boys or mowing our grass or something so he's not in the house with me.

Maybe we're not adjusting so well after all.

Anyone?

Familiar notes stream through that little song every time I hear it. Coming home is no joke, my friends. Sometimes it's harder than leaving. Think for a moment: are you the same person you were six months ago? Is your warrior? And finally:

Should you expect them to be?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

See A Penny, Pick It Up

There's this old saying that goes 'See a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck!'

Well, I've been picking up pennies for a few days now because life at my house has been crazy. And I mean:

CRAY-ZAY.

I've been attending a Family Wellness Symposium for the last two days and have come away with a massive load of new and pertinent information for ALL the services. I can't wait to do blog after blog after blog about all the great people I met and information I found.

As a precursor to that, I'd like to tell you a little bit about the hot topic of the week:

resiliency.

What IS resiliency?! What does it mean? Is it an action? An emotion?

The answer is: YES!

It's a ton of things all wrapped together. An effective definition of resiliency is the ability to revert to original size and shape after being stretched, squeezed, or twisted (or at least that's what Webster says, and I believe them)! Doesn't that sound like our lifestyle?! As military families, we're stretched thin, twisted around, squeezed into uncomfartable situations and yet, we manage to effectively bounce back.

So now that we know what resiliency is, how do we get it?

This week, we've talked about that. All the best minds in my part of the military community have put their heads together and come up with a few ideas. We think that resiliency is developed, not born in. It's caused by repeated exposure to stress and the willingness to find a coping mechanism that works for you. For example:

My family has been through more deployments than I am comfortable talking about. (Ha!) After the first one, we were a mess. After the second one, we sort-of-kind-of had an idea of how bad the stink factor would be. After the third, we developed a plan. After the fourth, we realized that the plan worked...and so on.

Our resiliency was non-existent during our first deployment. We had never been tested, we didn't know what worked for us. It's was something that we had to learn...a trial by fire, if you will. Our first 'trial' was a complete and total science fair. (That is to say, a MESS.) It improved progressively until this very day when, as a stare down the barrel of any future deployment, I can say that while I may not like it, I got this. I may hate it, but I can cope.

I learned my resiliency by trial through fire. How did your family learn theirs? What works for you? Tell me about it!