Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Deployment

Military Care Package Resource Guide

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Military Care Package Resource Guide

 

A great article from JustMilitaryLoans.com 🙂

Military Care Package Resource Guide
With 145,000 troops on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan1 there’s no doubt that many will feel the heartache of being away from family and loved ones during the holidays.  Here at Just Military Loans we know the value in any type of gift, but one of the most simple and profound gifts are the kind that travel a long distance.

military care packages

photo provided by Support Our Military

A Movement Starts With One Person
Katrina Pesek took the time to do this.  As a proud military wife and mother, she sent a care package to her husband during his first deployment in Iraq.  After sharing all the goodies with many of his Marines comrades, he told her the shocking news that there weren’t too many other servicemen who receive anything mostly because of high shipping costs.

This statement struck a chord with Katrina. She had just assumed, as most of us probably do, that all of our troops receive care packages. In reality, some troops go a 7-12 month deployment without receiving a package filled with some of the small comforts of home. This inspired Katrina to start her own grass roots care package effort called Support Our Military.

It all started in 2009 when she sent extra care packages to her husband which he would distribute to fellow Marines. She continued to do this while she also balanced a full-time job, a household, and family.  Over the years, with the help of her community, she has managed to send out 328 care packages to troops overseas.  Like her husband always says, “one care package means more to any deployed service man or woman, than none”.

While she never expects a response, she has received several thank you notes and e-mails from her deployed adoptees. Here is an excerpt from a note she received from a Marine stationed in Iraq:

“We live on a remote outpost 4+ hours from the nearest civilization so we have no way of buying anything and we depend heavily on mail like yours. Which comes 2-3 times a month.  In a war that doesn’t gain much public support in the U.S., it means a lot that we still get so much love from folks like you and all. You really have no idea how much of an impact you make on these Marines. You really help the time pass by and make our deployment easier.”

military care packages

What’s In A Box
Like this grateful Marine stated it’s hard to get additional supplies. Surprisingly, baby wipes are at the top of the list for most needed items. Not all of our deployed have the luxury of a bathroom or running water so baby wipes are sometimes the only means of a bath. Also, foods like cookies, snacks, canned tuna and even hot sauce are highly sought after items as they help break the MRE (meals ready to eat) cycle and offer a small reminder of home.  Click here to find the full list of Care Package Wish List.

How You Can Help
This holiday season Katrina is working on sending a little holiday cheer to our deployed with some special holiday care packages. She plans on raising funds through auctions and the sale of designer jewelry and handbags by Gorjana in order to send out as many holiday care packages as she can.

There are many ways you can get involved:  run donation drives at your place of employment, local church or school, or within your community.  If you’d like to be a part of Support Our Military’s care package effort, they are always accepting donations of wish list items or homemade items. Monetary donations are always graciously accepted as each package costs $12.95 to ship.  Visit their website for more information:  Support Our Military.

Can I Really Make it Through This Deployment?

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Can I Really Make it Through This Deployment?

Can I Really Make it Through This Deployment?

I was looking through some of the keywords that people use to come to this blog and “Can I Really Make it Through This Deployment?” came up a few times.  I want to tell these people that although it does seem hard, you can make it through.  The time before they leave can be really difficult.  You wonder what it will be like, if you can do this time alone, if you can parent alone if you can handle him being in a war zone, etc.  It is hard to know exactly what to expect, even if you have gone through one before.

You never really know how you are going to feel or what the deployment will be like.

Each one is a little different.

There have been times during all of our deployments that I just wondered how I would make it one more day.  I felt burned out and just done with everything. But somehow I was able to pick myself back up and get on with it.  Sometimes it was because of a lot of prayers, other times it was getting together with a friend and sometimes I would even have to give myself a pep talk.  A lot of tears might have been shed but that is how I got through the deployment.

I think we try to be strong and don’t think we can ever cry about what is going on.  We even hear people say we shouldn’t complain.  But some days you just have to break down. You just have to let everything all out before you can move on to the next day.  It is ok to have a bad deployment day, to have ice cream for dinner, to cry to a friend. This is all a part of getting through the months or even years alone. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Each of us handle this type of things differently and just because a friend never seems to have a bad day, it doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t.

So to those of you afraid for your first deployment and think you won’t be able to make it through, if you love your husband, if you are committed to him, then you will.  You will be able to make it through.  You will get through the X amount of months and come out stronger on the other side. You will. Sometimes it might feel like you are just getting through one day at a time. The days can feel long and frustrating. That is all apart of your journey. Try to remember that deployments don’t last forever and you will be reunited with your spouse once again and the whole crazy thing will be over. You will get to homecoming, I promise. You will be back in his arms and the deployment will be a part of your memories, for good or for bad.

What advice would you give to someone facing their first deployment?

 

* this post contains affiliate links!

Advice For Your First Deployment

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Advice For Your First Deployment

Advice For Your First Deployment

My next guest post is by a friend of mine, Jess.  She was the very first Army wife I met when we started this Army adventure. She was also my FRG leader.  I asked her to write about advice she would give someone who was getting ready for their first deployment.  Our first deployment was in 2006 and Jess was there to tell me a little bit of what to expect so I just knew this would be a great post!  Thank you Jess 🙂

Stressed? Emotional? Perhaps even a bit stand-offish? Sounds like you’ve got a deployment coming up. The bad news is your Soldier is leaving. The good news is you aren’t alone!

There is no specific way to handle a deployment, especially your first deployment. Some people take it all in stride and seem to brush off the hardship. Others seem to physically break down the second their Soldier marches away. Still others seem to change entirely and don’t seem to return to normal until their Soldier is back in their arms again. No matter which category you find yourself falling into, remember this: You are STRONG. You are CAPABLE. You CAN do this!

Just as parenting a child has no actual guidebook, deployments don’t come with magic spouse field manuals. However, let’s not speak that phrase too loudly. I’ve seen some pretty crazy things put into FM’s before. The greatest way to make it through the hardships of a deployment are to simply listen to your heart, listen to other’s advice and pray. If you feel overwhelmed, talk to someone! Believe me, there are a lot of us out there who are willing to listen and lend a hand (or a shoulder) when necessary. Don’t be afraid to ask.

One of the greatest things you can do for yourself is to set personal goals.. You don’t have to get crazy with it; the point of a goal is to be able to accomplish it. Set mini-milestones throughout to ensure you stay focused and on-target. A big favorite that I’ve seen is weight-loss/healthier lifestyles. Say you set a goal to lose 25 pounds throughout the year. Remember to start off in small increments, and celebrate each 5 pounds you are able to lose. This is a great way to have something realistic to look forward to in a relatively short time! The greatest part is-IT’S ALL YOURS! It’s very easy to lose yourself in the constant stress during a deployment. Don’t forget that your Soldier still needs you just as much as you need him/her. Take care of yourself, even while supporting your deployed loved one.

If I could offer just one last bit of advice, it would be to stay busy and not forget that the world is still going round. It’s very common to feel bad about going out and having fun while your loved one is away, but remember, you need your personal time as well. It’s ok to go catch a movie with the girls, or secure a babysitter for a few hours of pampering at the salon every now and again. You are HouseHold 6. You keep the home fires burning. You can’t take care of anyone else unless you take care of yourself first. Make yourself a priority, especially while your loved one is away. Don’t lose yourself to the chaos and stress, and always reach out if you need help. You follow a long legacy of the Silent Ranks. You can do this!

 

 

Financial checklist for soon to be deployed military members

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My next guest post is by Matt Polsky from the VA Benefit Blog.  He is going to be talking about how to prepare financially before going on a deployment.

Financial checklist for soon to be deployed military members

Horror stories of soldiers accruing debt while serving are far too numerous.  Financial preparation could lessen the nerves of the moment and save money for both the service member and his or her family. However, how does one save? And what are some last minute tips for soldiers with no emergency fund?

Things to Do Before Deployment

Military members could save a lot of money while deployed. They could even potentially end with more money than they started. How?

  1. Create an emergency fund. It is extremely difficult to put money aside. However, everyone should try their best to throw a few extra dollars every week into the bank and forget about it. This is the most effective way to meet emergencies and life-changes head on. Try paying yourself first, aim to deposit 8-10 percent of your paycheck and try to forget about it until an emergency arises.
  2. Start researching what creditors offer military members on duty. Some creditors have military discounts and forbearances. Call them to find out what a military member can do in the case of deployment. Many of them will have an answer. However, some will not want to offer any leniency. In that case, all service members leaving for active duty should utilize the protections provided under the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act. The law protects military members from financial burden. They can eliminate or lower income tax, credit card debts, mortgage payments and rent while on duty. For members with families, the law gives them peace of mind because banks are not allowed to evict or foreclose on a home while a service member is on duty. This law still requires the military member to give the bank or property owner and other creditors proper notice of deployment.
  3. Making small decisions lead to big savings. For example, store the car away and do not let anyone use it. Insurance companies will lower plan rates for a car not in use. Not to mention, a stored car runs no risk of repair or damage if it is not being used. Another way a small decision could save money—suspend cell phone coverage. Many mobile providers can suspend your coverage and let you keep your same number for up to 18 months and reactivate the phone upon your return. This makes perfect sense for soldiers who regularly use online phone services such as Skype as well as prepaid phone cards and email to communicate with their family and friends back home.
  4. Obtain legal protection of finances. Assigning a trusted Power of Attorney to manage accounts and budgets could help to limit big spending and protect from theft or loss while gone. It would be a nightmare to come back only to find an empty bank account.

It is important to make sure family and friends are on the same page about the actions taken to protect funds. Assure them of insurance coverage as well as the protections under SCRA. Be strict about spending and the use of personal property while away. Taking the above precautions will leave one with money in the bank as opposed to substantial debt.

Matt Polsky is a blogger associated with VA Benefit Blog, a blog focused on providing veterans and service members with current news and information on the benefits they have through serving our country.


Dinosaur Deploys

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My next guest poster is Laura from Military Word of Mouth.  She has a great idea for kids to help them through a deployment!  I know my boys would have loved something like this 🙂

Lately, I have been going through things trying to get rid of some stuff to prepare for our next move. Probably, pretty soon our landlady will be calling to let us know that someone is coming over to see the house to potentially rent for next year. While going through a bookshelf, I found one of my son’s photo albums from last year.


It’s just a small 4″x6″ album that I found at Walgreens for like a $1.00, but to him it was priceless. You see it contains photos of his dinosaur on an adventure, and not just any adventure, but an adventure with his daddy. When my husband deployed last January, my son gave my husband one of his dinosaurs to hug whenever he missed him.

So, my husband took pictures of the dinosaur on his deployment adventure and would send them to my son either by email or by snail mail.


I can not tell you how much my son loved this, but when he saw the pictures, his face would beam. He even asked if he could bring the album to show and tell to share with his friends at preschool.

Having a parent deployed is such a hard concept for a young child to understand and accept. This is such a simple way to help ease their pain, if only for a bit. If your spouse is deploying shortly, ask your child if he or she would like to share one of his/her small stuffed animals. If your spouse is already deployed consider sending it over in the next package you mail out. Have your child be the one to put it in the box so he feels like he is helping his daddy miss home a little less. If your spouse doesn’t have a camera, throw in a disposable one.

Top 25 annoying Army Deployment Questions and Comments

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Stephanie has offered a guest post to me 🙂  She blogs over at Mama Clementine!  She is a SAHM of four, been an Army Wife for 11 years and been through five deployments.  Thanks so much for the post Stephanie!

Top 25 annoying Army Deployment Questions and Comments

 

annoying Army Deployment Questions
Rakkasan  Deployment 2007
Matthew 11, Dylan 7, Lauren 5 

This morning I was reading a post over at Caffeinated Catholic Mamaof how people have lost all sense of personal-space and privacy, either because of our over sharing techno culture or maybe just a general lack of manners. She gives her wonderful list of Top annoying and prying questions from absolute strangers, Here.

While writing in her comments I was thinking that for me, being such a Counter-Culture Mama, the lists of random rude questions and offending comments from those that it just does not concern, could go on and on…ad infinitum. So, I thought for fun, I would make a small project out of several lists of obscenely annoying Questions and Comments that I have gotten from strangers, all neatly compiled into categories. 🙂
What follows is a list of my TOP 25 way too personal, yet oh so popular questions and all to common comments, that I have received during my husband’s Deployments.
      1. Oh, is your Husband Deployed ?
      2. Do you Miss Him ?
      3. Is it Hard ?
      4. Will they send Him home for the Birth ?
      5. Is it your Husband’s Baby or Jody’s ?
      6. Does your Husband know you’re pregnant ?
      7. Do you know who the Father is ?
      8. What will you do / How will you have a Baby by yourself ?
      9. Why do you have / keep having kids if he is gonna be gone so much ?
      10. Your children are so young, If he gets killed, they won’t remember him.
      11. Why do you have kids when, He could get killed anytime ?
      12. Your so Lucky you live off the government, the rest of us have to work.
      13. If you didn’t live off the government you wouldn’t be able to afford all those kids.
      14. Maybe your husband will die and you’ll get all that money.
      15. You should take out some more insurance on your husband, because he has a good chance of being killed.
      16. But, just think of all that extra money at Tax time.
      17. I don’t know how you could do that, I could never let my Husband do that.
      18. (My Sister-in-laws fave way of relating to me)…I know just how you feel, my Husband was out of Town, on the road, for two weeks last month !
      19. How can you be Faithful for 15 months ?
    annoying Army Deployment Questions
    Deployment 2003
    Dylan 2yrs

    20. Do you worry about your Husband cheating on you ?

    21.  You don’t think your Husband will wait a whole year do you ?

    22.  Don’t you all just sleep around with each others Husbands anyway ?

    23.  So, has your Husband Killed anybody yet ?

    24.  You could have gotten out / why would he stay in / It’s his fault he is Deploying / So he’s getting out after this right ?

    25.  Using up my time by going on a long rant about how you feel about the war and whether or not we should be “Over-There”

    ….and the  ***** Extra Credit Bonus*****

    So Wow, it is Just like Army Wives on The    T.V. Show

     

    Joining Forces For Military Families

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    America has been involved in two wars for 8+ years now.  Many military families have been through deployment after deployment during this time.  We are two months into our 3rd deployment and I can feel the weight of the last two.  And I know I am not alone in this.  Many other families are going through the same thing.  I am not sure when these rapid deployments will end.  When there can be YEARS between them.  I have been praying this can happen for a long time now and I just have to hope it will.  They tell us we will get two years between deployments now.  But really?  I am not sure I can believe this.  Especially since things are going on in other places in the world besides just Iraq and Afghanistan.  And although I hope for years I am preparing myself.  We just started this deployment and I already have to mentally prepare for a fourth which could happen just a year after he returns from this one.

    I was so happy to see this website  Joining Forces.  This is a national initiative started by the First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden.

    The website says this, “1% of Americans may be fighting our wars, but we need 100% of Americans to be supporting our troops and their families. Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden are asking Americans to get involved in any way they can.”

    This needs to happen!  Deployments are not going away.  And the more deployments families go through, the more support we will need.   I hope all of America can help in some way.   While part of our family is off fighting in a war, we need to know that America cares and respects that.  Over the last 5+ years that we have been a military family we have seen such wonderful support from friends and family.  Thank you all so much!  Your support means more than you will ever know.

    So no matter what your political beliefs are, no matter if you support the war or not, check out that site and find a way to help a military family 🙂

     

     

    I Never Planned On Being A Military Spouse

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    I Never Planned On Being A Military Spouse

    I Never Planned On Being A Military Spouse

    How is your life different than you thought it would be? Did you think you would be a military spouse? 

    Becoming a military spouse wasn’t something I dreamed about or planned for, even after I had met my husband.

    I got married in 2002 to a man who had already served in the military a little over 2 years. He was only a few years shy of completing his 8 years of service. He was considered “Inactive Ready Reserve.”  

    That basically meant he could be called up but the military wasn’t really a part of his life anymore. When 9/11 happened, I did worry that he would get called up and wondered what it would be like to be a military wife, but by the time we got married that didn’t seem too likely.

    I didn’t see myself as a Military Spouse and did not think that was something that would ever happen.

    When I married my husband and thought about the future, the military just wasn’t a part of my dreaming. I never thought that I would parent alone for so long. I never thought I would go 11 months without seeing my husband.

    I had been in long-distance relationships in the past and I didn’t want that in a marriage. I didn’t think that should be a part of a marriage. That was for people who were dating, right?

    I never thought I would have so much alone time in marriage. I never thought I would have to worry about my husband going to war.

    I had a coworker with a boyfriend who was a marine. They got married and then he went overseas. I remember watching her write love letters and I just couldn’t imagine that kind of life. I had no idea that just three years later, I would be the one to write those love letters to my own husband who was overseas.

    Sometimes I wonder if all this sacrifice is worth everything we have gone through.

    Sometimes I wonder what our life would have been like had he never joined the military. Sometimes I wonder if we should have picked a different path. Sometimes I just wonder if making this decision was the best thing to do.

    When I married my husband, I was not planning this kind of life…but this is the life that I have and all I can do is look at the positives. I have to remember that life hardly ever turns out exactly how you planned it, no matter what you do or what type of job you have.

    No, I never planned on being a military spouse but I will do the best I can as I support my husband through whatever this life brings.

    The First Day they are Gone

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    The First Day they are Gone

    The First Day they are Gone

    The first day they are gone really sucks.  When they leave in the early morning vs afternoon/evening, the first day is even harder.  Why?  Because when they leave later in the day you have less of a first day to get through. You can come home and go to bed and then before you know it, you are on day two. This is such a little thing but the time of day makes a big difference.

    The first day they are gone you walk around your house in a daze.  You want to be out doing something but you don’t want to at the same time.

    The first day they are gone you see something you bought together at the store and looking at what you bought makes you cry.  You see their dirty laundry and the pile makes you cry. You would give anything for them to come home and add more dirty laundry to the pile.

    The first day they are gone you realize you can toss that almost empty bottle of shaving cream because no one is going to be around for a while to use it up.  And then you cry because no one will be around to use the shaving cream up.

    The first day they are gone you sometimes forget and then remember quickly that they are not coming home that night.  That you will be on your own for dinner, bedtime and you will sleep alone. Earlier in the day, you can almost pretend they are just at work. After dinner, you can’t do that anymore and reality starts to set in.

    The first day they are gone you wonder what he is feeling, what he is doing, where he is at. If he is scared or how much he is missing home. If he cried too even though you rarely see tears in his eye. If he wishes that at that moment, he had chosen a career that never took him from home.

    The first day he is gone you try to figure out how you are going to make X amount of days.  You wonder how you will be both mom and dad and how you will handle life when your children realize daddy won’t be coming home at night for a while. You know solo parenting is difficult and here you are having to do everything once again.

    The first day he is gone you are hit hard with how hard this military life can be sometimes and how strong you will have to be to make it through the deployment.

    The first day they are gone sucks, it really really sucks and you pray the second day they are gone is a little bit better. Because after day one is over, you are officially in deployment mode and you have a long road ahead of you. But at least, after day one is over you know you have one less day to get through until they come home.

    Want a Guide for the First 30 Days of a Deployment???