heaven and hell at once

So, anyone who has been kind enough to read my ramblings about my son probably realizes by now that I am just crazy over the kid and fighting the fight of my life between fear and faith.  I have written about a myriad of things to do with his deployment, his childhood, my fears and my pride.  Now it’s time to bring up another really important part of the story—Buck!!

So here’s the story of Buck…as I know it.  Buck is a German Shepherd.  Hunter VOLUNTEERED for this Iraq deployment in June.  In July, he travelled to Indiana to the Vohne Liche Kennels.  Upon his arrival he met Buck– formally known as an Explosive Detection Canine.  He spent one month in the guidance of  the trainers from Vohne Liche.  There he learned tons of information about Buck, what Buck can do and how he can handle Buck and how together they can be a very effective team.  He spent time learning about the following:

Grooming and Health

First Aid/Safety

Explosive Overview

Odor Characteristics 

Contours (Odor Travel)

Leash Control

Explosive Searching

Detection Searches

Buildings

Vehicle

Obedience

He was so excited and when he would call me from school he was always so enthused about the content of the course.  He and Buck spent all their time together and their bond began to form.  I came to love Buck, too, through pictures and hearing Buck stories…..and also knowing that Buck is trained to protect my son and his fellow soldiers at all costs.

In Indiana, Hunter also met the team he is currently in Iraq with.  They also began to form their bond, as well.

From Indiana, after Hunter and Buck’s graduation….the dynamite duo  travelled to Arizona to the Army  portion of the schooling.  While Vohne Liche had been in depth civilian training….the Army then sent him to six more weeks of their curriculum.  He spent lots of time tracking in the desert sand, very practical practice for the terrain in Iraq.  I heard stories of ’sidewinders’ which sounded like pretty hateful little varmints….one of the few we don’t have here in Dixie.  I heard stories of having to spend the nights in the desert alone with all the dogs on a rotation basis and I could also hear in my son’s voice that the bond was really growing—daily—with both the dog and his fellow soldiers. 

Upon the Army’s graduation, Buck was sent to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.  There he was ’sworn in’ to the Army and given his rank.  His rank is E-5.  It is Army policy that the dog will always be one rank higher than his handler.  Cute, hunh?  Now that Buck has become a certified Army Canine, any time Hunter is in a building he must leave his cover (hat) on.  This is the Army’s notification to other soldier’s that an armed soldier has entered the room.  So whether my son has his gun or not, he is still considered armed with Buck.  Again, cool hunh? 

Now, on to the mission of my dynamic duo….as I am told this is a brand new thing…well, sort of…they did it in Vietnam but it hasn’t been used since…..Hunter and Buck will be attached to a Special Forces Unit.  Another duo will be with him as well, they will be assigned in pairs of K9s and Soldiers.  When the Special Forces Unit finds explosives Hunter and Buck will be tracking back to the source of the explosives…..yeah, trust me, I know….it’s a really dangerous mission!  I doubt that the Iraqis that are laying the explosives make it easy to track back to them…….

My only thread of sanity comes from knowing how well trained both he and Buck are and the strong bond between the two–and of course my faith.  Hunter stands 6′3″ and Buck just about 3 foot but Buck weighs in at 160 lbs anyway…..not much less than my Lanky Long Legs son! 

So now, my friends and supporters you know about Buck–a very important part of the story!! Surely you have heard pride, pride and more pride in this installment and also with a bit more info on the mission it’s pretty clear that my fears are not trivial or contrived……next time I think I will write about the rest of the Soldiers that are with him….I have grown to know them and care for them, too….

So, please keep Hunter and Buck in your thoughts and prayers and me, too……

God Bless Hunter and Buck…..

Mama loves 

My oldest child will leave for Iraq this week. I so vividly remember holding him as a baby…looking at that little face and imagining what he would grow to be. It seemed like so far away in the future. I can remember his sounds,  his smells and his adorable little personality.  Now I watch him wear his uniform proudly and tower over everyone in the room. He doesn’t cry anymore when he gets hurt. His once toothless smile sometimes includes a cigarette–much to my dismay!  We have conversations about girls (gasp!) or the news or things that happened in his day and, once in a while, I’ll hear the occasional curse word come out of his mouth–He’s a Soldier–what can I expect?? He’s begun to have his own experiences separate from me. Even though, what’s funny is I can soooooo hear myself in him and the things he laughs about and thinks for some reason he has invented…!! LOL I know that there are parts of his life that I don’t know about and I hold my breath hoping that he is good and happy and safe. Every once in a while he’ll give me a hug or I’ll watch him sleeping and he still seems somehow small. I dream about this next stage of his life and realize how proud I am of all he has done so far and just how proud I will be when he comes home from Iraq……when he comes home!!  Mama loves Son….Mama loves

I am so proud to be Hunter’s mom!

And so it begins……..we spent the weekend together…..like old times.  Laughing and goofing off.  He bungee jumped and we raced go-karts.  We admired the beauty of the mountains and even went under the ground in some pretty neat caverns.  I bought him a coke float….like the ones I used to make him when he was little.  We talked, we laughed and we loved the time we had together.  Just another weekend, right…NOT.  The last weekend before he goes to Iraq. 

You just want to capture and savor and freeze every moment in time.  I spent the weekend in denial.  I can honestly admit that.  There’s a fine line between acknowledging and accepting what is happening and denying it.  I denied it.  Until the very last night……..we watched a comedy!  A really freakin funny one, too–What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas–Funny–a hoot really.  And then in the last few minutes of the movie my psyche would no longer accept the denial……….and reality fried me to the bone.  I wanted to take him and hold him and take him to his room and set him up with his little movies and toys and DARE the government to come knocking trying to drag him off to their STUPID war!  Like I said though, reality blindsided me and I realized I can’t…..I can’t keep in his room as my little boy because he is now a man—a very, very brave man…and I also realized it’s not the JUST the government’s STUPID war—-it’s ours.  We the American people….we have a land and a constitution and a people to protect and uphold and my son has to go defend them.  And I realized that we are the Land of the free…Because of the Brave.  I realized that come the next morning he would be off to pick up his orders and I would be headed back to my prison–the prison I shall live in until he returns home safely to me and all that love him.  So, I guess I have reached a point.  I have at least acknowledged his mission and that of our United States Armed Forces.  I have not accepted it yet.

Come on board with me.  Save me from the insanity that lies just below the surface.  I need strength—that’s why I blog.  Is there a way to make it to the next step?

  Accepting is completely a foreign idea for me at this point….I can honestly say that.

It was a sweet weekend.  I loved every moment.  It’s what I lived for.  Times like those made every challenge of parenthood more that worth it.  I can not wait to do it again.

Mama loves Son….Mama loves 

Yeah, it’s heavy.  I know. 

…………..this blog is serving it’s purpose.  I pulled a very long day today and came home very tired.  Had a brief chat via text with my son and we shared our confusion over how this whole thing feels….deep ‘mom/son’ stuff but you guys understand, I hope.  I cried a lot and I have learned to do it when he doesn’t know about it because I don’t want to burden him with worrying about me when he faces such a task as this…..

And then, I log on to this blog and I have a comment waiting for me on my most recent post.  Not just any well meaning comment, because they all are…..but a comment from a VETERAN!!  I appreciate ALL my comments and all my support from everyone who stops here for a moment or two…..but when it comes from someone who has served our country and to whom I have to thank for my own freedoms and rights today….that really was uplifting!!  And again, today was another one of those “really need it days.” 

I guess I am starting to realize there are going to be mostly “really need it days” until my son’s feet are firmly and safely back in this GREAT country we live in and even more so when I can wrap my arms around my baby boy’s neck (of course, reaching up to do it) and tell him how proud his mama is!! Not to mention over the moon to have him home!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please join me in thanking the Veteran who stopped by today for turning my day around with his words……..and please keep them coming everyone….it makes all the difference and means soooooooooooooooo much to me.

God Bless the USA!

So today, I am waiting in the drive thru….and I hear this lady yelling at me!  I am thinking hmmmm, I don’t think I cut her off or drove erratically…LOL…so I push the button and the windows go down and I stick my head out hesitantly and look her direction.  She got this genuinely kind look on her face and said, “just wanted to thank you for your sacrifice and your son’s service.”  Oh boy, that set off a crying fit.  I politely thanked her and then left the fast food lane without my order.  She had seen my “My son serves so we can be free” sticker.  I was so grateful for her kind comment but yet it just really touched a nerve that’s so close to the surface anyway right now.  I thought of my son and his tall lean stature and his ever deepening voice and his bright gorgeous blue eyes and his easy way and then reality slapped me hard–he’s about to face insurgents and IED’s and hostile people who don’t understand or welcome his mission and view our entire nation as their enemy.  That’s why this blog is called heaven and hell at once……because I am so proud and so blessed to be his mom but I am also very anxious and it just troubles me beyond description that I can’t be there to be sure he’s getting enough to eat and enough rest (which I am certain he won’t be) and I won’t be there to watch out for him or make sure he has a clean uniform like I used to in ROTC–I know that borderlines on silly to some but it’s my emotions and most of the time in this case, my emotions make no sense.  I guess that’s pretty much what I am blogging for, is to try and use this as an outlet and perhaps keep a bit of sanity.  Of course, hoping to get words from you all to keep my perspective as healthy as I can. So to the lady who thanked me….thank YOU for being so kind….and to all of you who read here….thank YOU for not having me locked up in the cuckoo bin…..and he hasn’t even left the country yet!  I just love him more than words can say and I am very blessed that I am his mom…..remember I am here for your strength, support and courage to lean on…….so send some my way….it’s one of those ‘really need it’ days.

He turned 20 in February.  Growing so fast…..enjoying life to the fullest.  Bought himself a fast (and very nice) car and fielding the ladies like an old pro (wink, wink) grows his whiskers when he is on leave and loves his little brothers more than ever!  Still a sucker for a laugh and usually the guy in the group that evokes the most laughter out of the whole group.  Still hates it when I kick his butt go-cart racing (don’t listen to his claims that he LET me win!) A true American kid coming in to his own and figuring out this life and where he wants it to take him.  A mother’s dream–a happy, healthy, polite well-adjusted kid.

He just turned 20 in February.  Drives a government issued Tahoe and has his K9 partner Buck riding shotgun.  Straps his knives and guns on before he begins his shift.  Tries to keep some sense of reality with all that he sees while performing his duty to this great nation.  Keenly aware of his surroundings and constantly has an eye for safety and security. VOLUNTEERED for his upcoming tour to ‘the sandbox’.  Uncle Sam’s dream–a patriotic kid with a real sense of duty, who believes we ask not what our country can do for us but we can do for our country, who takes his liberties and freedoms seriously enough to lay his life on the line for it.

That’s what this blog is about……..reconciling the two young men you read about above.

Both boys any mom would be proud to call their son, both boys are one in the same—my first born son of whom I am most proud.

This is somewhat off my intended topic but it’s rather important for me to get this out there.

You ever hear that saying, “The only people you need in your life is the people that need you in their’s”?  Well, if you haven’t previously….now you have!  And let me expound upon it………Don’t bust your butt for a friendship or a relationship or anything else for that matter with a person that doesn’t appreciate you or reciprocate your attention to the friendship and/or relationship.  If at sometime during your friendship/relationship it becomes evident that you are an ‘option’ to the other party then WITHDRAW your attention, adoration and friendship and/or love.  Do NOT waste another minute thinking that with just a little more TLC the other person will come around.  Forgive me for being blunt but if they are an A%@*Hole now, they always will be!!!  Save your energies and attention for the multitudes that are out there that will appreciate you and reciprocate your actions of appreciation.  Trust me, someone will value YOU just the way YOU are more than you have ever been valued before.  So find those relationships/friendships and bask in them.  The quicker you move on the better for you and all those who truly will love and appreciate you!

Wise wisdom gathered from fourty years of faltering  

p.s. promise to get back to my intended journalling of my son’s brave journey and mine and his feelings along the way next post….deviated long enough

So what if…..they took the monitoring ankle bracelet off of the “Mother of the Year” Casey Anthony?  Would she begin to feel like she had gotten away with it…..??  Maybe if she thought the eyes of the world and the OCSO were off of her, she would return to the scene where she buried/burned or dumped poor little Caylee.  Remember Scott Peterson?? He was free and the Modesto Police Department secretly planted a GPS on his vehicle–Numerous times he returned to the bay where he claimed he was fishing when Laci disappeared!!  Four months later, whaddya know…Laci and her unborn baby, Connor wash up in the exact location that “Father/Husband of the Year” claimed he was fishing. 

There seems to be something about the sociopathic criminal mind that makes them want to go back to double check their ‘genius’ and in essence return to the scene of the crime.  Clearly, Casey Anthony fits the sociopath mold.  She is obviously very brazen…I mean, Hello…..writing checks while being filmed on video??!!

Since none of the other tactics seem to be working….i.e.  Equusearch and the offer of limited immunity….perhaps the OCSO should change tactics and follow more of the investigative model that the Modesto Police used to give ol’ Scotty the proverbial rope to hang himself……..take the focus off of Casey, let some of the media attention wane and let Casey be the sinister Casey that she is and perhaps then maybe we can find the little fallen angel Caylee and enjoy the much anticipated ‘frying’ of Casey and perhaps her mom, dad and brother, too!!

Just a thought or two from a mom who is trying very hard to think and talk and write about ANYTHING to take my mind off my son’s upcoming deployment to Iraq……Thanks for stopping by….Encouragement, comments, opposing views and the like warmly welcomed!!