Advanced Combat Training...

My son's travel agent has decided that he needs to get away from the lovely Arkansas weather for the holidays and is sending him to Iraq.
Right now, Mr.Blue is on the east coast for combat and survival training. We've had some pretty weird conversations the past two weeks. "Mom!" He told me. "While I'm there, I'll be in all my kevlar and I'm going to get SHOT!" At first I was thinking, well sure, you've got to get your shots up to date before deploying, but then as we talked I realized no, that's not what he's talking about. He's REALLY going to be SHOT. I guess part of the training is dressing up in your battle gear and then getting shot with simulation rounds coming out of an M-16 to make sure you can still function when you feel the impact of rounds hitting your vest or whatever. Probably no big deal after spending 2 weeks hauling dead bodies from humvee to humvee and crawling on the ground with M16s firing all around you... Another day he txted and said, "I died today" ..."they carried me and loaded me into another convoy and it was fun" Yeah whatever.





He's loving it. My geeky dorky non-athletic straign A-son has started to buff out and act like a guy and I'm so proud of him. He's ready to go and it won't be long and he'll be there.





We were able to steal a day with him before he left TDY. Well, not a day. Three and a half hours. It was wonderful...

As a mom, it's really bothering me that he'll be gone for christmas. And, by the time I get his mailing address in the sand, his packages won't get there until January. That's ok. He'll know before he leaves that care boxes will be on their way.

My son will be 20 years old 2 weeks before he leaves for the sand.

I was in the store this morning before work, and there was a man stocking candy bars and another man across the aisle filling up the chip rack. Of course, they were discussing the election last night. As I walked over to get my coffee I heard one of them say, ..."this isn't going to end the war in Iraq like everybody thinks. It's not going to bring the troops home." Oh Man. I wanted to say something. Something like... Well, I dont' know. I just wanted to say SOMETHING. But I bit my tongue and behaved. I still cry every time I'm driving down the road alone though. This is difficult. This is my baby boy. My only son. Going off into the middle of a war zone.

And WHAT REALLY TICKED ME OFF was on the radio over the weekend. Two different people mentioned hearing to me that there were NO u.s. casualties in Iraq last month. WRONG. There were TEN. Eight army, one marine, one air force. Two were not combat related, but eight were. and half of those were in the area my son is heading.

Ok. I think I'm better now.
For a little while, anyway.