trying to grok

Thanks, Sarah! He called last night and his flight is changed to Wednesday morning. I can now see why spouses, even though they love the soldier, at some point say "Ah! Get on the plane already!" It's too much sometimes.

I'm new to your site, but am not new to supporting a deployed soldier. Well, not that it's old hat...

All I can say is the support I get from the blogosphere has helped me through many a long day. I really wonder how I could do it without the many helping and supportive hands that hold me up when I'm feeling down.

Every day though makes you so appreciative for the little things in life. A 5 min. phone call can have me smiling for days. Gifts? Flowers? Forget 'em...as long I can hear my loved one's voice I'm good.

Oda Mae - today will be rough and sad and filled with pride - thank you for sharing your boy with us for a little while. Although we may never meet and I may never be able to thank you or Sarah or your husbands properly for what you've done so bravely - please know that we appreciate your sacrifice to our freedom and the Iraqi people appreciate it too. I'm glad you have friends like Sarah who have been there and who will be there for you. The families of our soldiers (British, American and all the others) have the difficult jobs that most of us could not hack. Thank you a million times. I'm proud to say I know a British soldier and his brave wife through an American wife of an American soldier through my computer! How whacko is that?

To one of my very favorite people in Germany--Oda Mae,
Having met you, I know you will be a real trooper while Husband is gone. Your great sense of humor will get you through alot of tough times, and I know how much you mean to Sarah so you'll be able to count on her for support. You and Husband will be in my thoughts and prayers.
Love,
Sarah's mom

Oda Mae,

You made me laugh :) Been there, done that, and everyone thought I was nuts.

Hubs had FIVE sets of orders cancelled before he finally deployed. By the time he left we had been on the deployment roller coaster for more than a year. By that point I was ready to wring someone's neck. If you are going to deploy them, do it already so we can get it over with!

My prayers are with you and your husband. Thank you for all that BOTH of you are doing.

Oda Mae -

Wish him the best from Tim and CPT Patti. The Lord will know we include him everytime we pray for "our soldiers". You too!

Tim

When I first saw the title of this post and the first two words, I thought,

"Oda Mae's leaving? No!"

But leaving is not a bad thing.

First, fighting in Iraq (metaphorically or literally) is not a bad thing. (Not a controversial opinion on this blog - I hope!)

Second, being Iraq doesn't mean being cut off from the rest of the world. It's possible to comment and even blog from there. There's a lot of WWII romanticism out there, but one downside to that period was the paucity of real-time communication.

As I write this, your husband's plane has already left. But I am thinking of him ... and you.

"your" and "you" referred to Oda Mae, of course. Sorry for the ambiguity.

Welcome back, Amritas. I've missed your comments and words wisdom!

Sarah's mom

Thanks for the kind words. It's an honor to hear from you - and to post on your daughter's blog.

I'm a little embarrassed, because this comments section should really be about Oda Mae and her husband.

Amritas, you can post anywhere about anything, I just like to read your thoughts!

As to real time communication - well the British Army is a tad different. My husband is entitled to a 20 minute phone call a week. (We can get more time if we pay for extra minutes with his credit card, but he put me on a budget as to that expense before he left.) Their computers are on an internal Ministry of Defense LAN - except for the welfare ones for the soldiers, where he can check his e-mail.

Even more frustrating, he's an officer like Sarah's husband. If he has one soldier waiting in line behind him, he will step aside to let his soldier get to the phone. AGGHH!! Looks like many 0200 phone calls to come.

Thanks so much, Sarah, for eliciting the nice comments. My deployment won't be nearly as bad as everyone else's - knock wood. He's only gone for six months, and he gets two weeks leave in the middle.

Oda Mae,

Thanks for the details on your situation.

When I wrote my comment the autobiography of a WWII vet* was fresh in my memory (I finished reading it a few days ago). I'm not saying that you will have it easy, but that poor guy didn't get to see home for two years. No phones (I think), and of course no e-mail. And he came home only to find that he and his girlfriend weren't meant to be.

I don't know how much contact my father had with my mother during the Vietnam War. My guess is not much. And after he got out of Vietnam, he went to college in Nebraska while my mother stayed behind in Hawaii for years. They weren't reunited for good until I was three. I'm not even sure if my father was around when I was born!

*The memoir is in comic book form (the author has drawn comics professionally for almost 60 years). You can see (and buy) it here:

http://www.meccacomics.com/issue-gallery.cfm?ID=12