OH before I forget!!
Jan. 21st, 2005 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Katy's unit was on the NBC national news last night!
...
OK, it was nobody she knew. It was a feature piece on the 3rd Infantry Division redeploying to Iraq, and they inteviewed a couple guys who hadn't deployed yet. Katy's already over there, but these hadn't left yet.
A couple bits of background:
1) III ID is the Division that took Baghdad in '03. The fellas they were interviewing were actual real live Infantrymen who were veterans of that, several of whom are still dealing with PTSD. Nice. Send 'em back over and see if they crack! But really, combat experience is worth its weight in gold and one of the things Dad still says that tell him Vietnam wasn't a waste is that it meant that no matter how many guys the Soviets had, we had more combat veterans, and that scared the piss out of them. Truth.
2) A Division is a large self-contained unit with an average of about 27,000 members. It is usually made up primarily of one type of soldier-- Infantry, Armor, etc-- and has all of its support staff built in. Katy, my sister, does Maintenance and Logistics: in other words, it's her job to make sure that the right number of trucks, in working order, are where they need to be. Adam, her husband, is a military policeman: in other words, he makes sure that those 27,000 people ain't misbehaving. (There's more to it than that. But anyhow.)
I don't really know more than that. I have a vague grasp of the complex organizational structure of a Division-- but not a firm enough one to commit to the Internet. Look it up.
Anyhow, these people are in the same organization as her but it's not like these were her buddies. No. Oddly enough, they were all white men. Shrug.
I had other things to say and have forgotten them.
But. In a few moments, when my camera has stopped transferring, I will have....
pictures of the cutest dog EVAR!!!
OK, just one for now. It's little so I won't cut.
I'm going to email this one to Katy, which is why it's so small.
My niece is the CUTEST. She's a Georgia peach so this is her first snow. She really, profoundly doesn't care, except that the 'feathers' of her feet and legs get all full of ice, which confuses her. I brought her in from running around in the snow and she kept sticking her whole hind foot into her mouth, then rubbing it along her head. It was adorable and bizzarre. We did check her over and she wasn't at all injured by the cold, but they're keeping a close watch on her outdoor time with all this cold. It was, after all, 80 in Savannah last week. (It's below freezing now, boy oh boy, and they are whining.)
Scout is now settled in at my parents' house and Dad is teaching her (dun dun duhhhh [scary soundtrack]) Manners. "You and I," he sighed, regarding the slightly-vibrating dog as she stood on her hind feet attempting to chew his hands off, "have work to do." No granddog of his is going to put muddy paws on visitors. OH no.
Back to Buffalo:
We are expecting 6-12" of snow, some of it "low-density" snow, which is "fluffier and will pile up higher".
2 thoughts:
1) YAY SNOW!
2) Delayed planes = more customers at bar. Sick but true. As long as they don't cancel flights and send people home. Strand 'em in the airport so we can console 'em with booze: that's the heartbreaking truth of how airport bartenders earn money on shitty nights.
...
OK, it was nobody she knew. It was a feature piece on the 3rd Infantry Division redeploying to Iraq, and they inteviewed a couple guys who hadn't deployed yet. Katy's already over there, but these hadn't left yet.
A couple bits of background:
1) III ID is the Division that took Baghdad in '03. The fellas they were interviewing were actual real live Infantrymen who were veterans of that, several of whom are still dealing with PTSD. Nice. Send 'em back over and see if they crack! But really, combat experience is worth its weight in gold and one of the things Dad still says that tell him Vietnam wasn't a waste is that it meant that no matter how many guys the Soviets had, we had more combat veterans, and that scared the piss out of them. Truth.
2) A Division is a large self-contained unit with an average of about 27,000 members. It is usually made up primarily of one type of soldier-- Infantry, Armor, etc-- and has all of its support staff built in. Katy, my sister, does Maintenance and Logistics: in other words, it's her job to make sure that the right number of trucks, in working order, are where they need to be. Adam, her husband, is a military policeman: in other words, he makes sure that those 27,000 people ain't misbehaving. (There's more to it than that. But anyhow.)
I don't really know more than that. I have a vague grasp of the complex organizational structure of a Division-- but not a firm enough one to commit to the Internet. Look it up.
Anyhow, these people are in the same organization as her but it's not like these were her buddies. No. Oddly enough, they were all white men. Shrug.
I had other things to say and have forgotten them.
But. In a few moments, when my camera has stopped transferring, I will have....
pictures of the cutest dog EVAR!!!
OK, just one for now. It's little so I won't cut.
I'm going to email this one to Katy, which is why it's so small.
My niece is the CUTEST. She's a Georgia peach so this is her first snow. She really, profoundly doesn't care, except that the 'feathers' of her feet and legs get all full of ice, which confuses her. I brought her in from running around in the snow and she kept sticking her whole hind foot into her mouth, then rubbing it along her head. It was adorable and bizzarre. We did check her over and she wasn't at all injured by the cold, but they're keeping a close watch on her outdoor time with all this cold. It was, after all, 80 in Savannah last week. (It's below freezing now, boy oh boy, and they are whining.)
Scout is now settled in at my parents' house and Dad is teaching her (dun dun duhhhh [scary soundtrack]) Manners. "You and I," he sighed, regarding the slightly-vibrating dog as she stood on her hind feet attempting to chew his hands off, "have work to do." No granddog of his is going to put muddy paws on visitors. OH no.
Back to Buffalo:
We are expecting 6-12" of snow, some of it "low-density" snow, which is "fluffier and will pile up higher".
2 thoughts:
1) YAY SNOW!
2) Delayed planes = more customers at bar. Sick but true. As long as they don't cancel flights and send people home. Strand 'em in the airport so we can console 'em with booze: that's the heartbreaking truth of how airport bartenders earn money on shitty nights.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-22 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-23 12:36 am (UTC)Thanks! :)
I myself don't really pray much-- I have never felt that it works to just ask God for stuff because that wouldn't be fair: obviously not everybody can have what they want, and if he worked on an individual favors basis then it just wouldn't be a good universal system. But it is beneficial to pray as a way of focusing one's desires on something, and not even I am cynical enough to believe that God wouldn't be interested in hearing what I felt I wanted, so I find it's nice to have conversations with him like that. But I still can't bring myself to ask him for stuff. I just tell him what I want. :) So you can be sure I've said many times, "God, I want my sister back!"
no subject
Date: 2005-01-23 06:53 pm (UTC)There are many biblical passages that tell us that we should ask God for what we want. But many people discount the spirit of the Bible because of some historical inaccuracys and myths that are crossed over from one religion to the next. But, I believe that God has a plan. And wether you read the Bible, the Koran, the Torah or any other spiritual tomb, there is a thread of light wound through them. And that light is God. Any "contradictions" in the bible, can probably be traced to the human who took his encouragement from God and wrote it down along with his own thoughts on what ever it was that God told them. I think what I am trying to say is that, I think God wants to hear from us wether he is hearing us tell him what we want, or if we are asking. There is a reason he has your sister in Iraq and it is not because he wants her to be hurt. Someone will be affected by your sister. Call it fate, call it coinsidence, call it what ever you like. She is in the military for a reason. You are working in airport bars for a reason, and that reason is to your benefit not to your detriment. Wether you decided to take these jobs, or God whispered it to you...Who is to say? I believe good things are waiting to happen for you and your family. And that because of you and your family good things will happen for others. No sacrifice like Katie's will go un rewarded. She signed up for service to her country, and that is incredibly honorable.