Book Review: 'National Guard 101'

There's an instruction manual for every job, weapon, and vehicle for those who enlist in the U.S. National Guard, but precious few published resources who marry into it. For the most part, everything has been passed down by word of mouth. It's all been tribal wisdom, gossip, and war stories. Until now.

Author Mary Corbett, a spouse with ties to the Minnesota and Georgia National Guards, has written "National Guard 101: A Handbook for Spouses". In 205 pages, Corbett cuts through acronyms and agencies, histories and traditions to deliver practical insights for National Guard families in a breezy, conversational manner.

"If your Soldier peruses this book, s/he may chuckle at my oversimplification in some areas," Corbett warns in her introduction. "That's fine because this book is for you. That's all a big fancy disclaimer that means consider this more of an essay than a research paper." [ix]

While she gets around to talking about brigades and big-wig party functions, Corbett aims squarely at the 150-person company level—the organizational building-block of the U.S. Army.

She briefly addresses Air National Guard concepts, because many social functions and stateside operations are neither "green" (ground/Army) nor "blue" (air/Air Guard) but "purple" (joint).

Families of new soldiers, as well as those of newly promoted non-commissioned officers and company-grade officers have the most to gain from Corbett's presentation. Even families who have weathered multiple deployments, however, may learn some useful tricks.

Corbett explains the basics with enough detail to be useful, but not intimidating. She applies liberal amounts of humor and word-play. (A field training exercise is "going to the woods." Annual Training is "going to camp.") Topics include:

• A quick history of the U.S. National Guard, why it matters, and why it's NOT the "state militia."

• How a National Guard soldier can be either part-time or full-time, on either state or federal duty, or work as a civilian federal technician.

• What your soldier does in his/her military job, and how to describe it to civilians.

• How to introduce yourself and find the right person when you walk into an armory.

• Survival skills and strategies for military events. ("Do NOT let your soldier tell you want to wear.")

Best of all, she offers spouses practical tips on how to build support systems that will work during deployments. As with most things military, there's an acronym involved.

There are five kinds of people, Corbett writes:

• Those who say they will help but really don't want to help ...

• Those who offer help but put the ball back in your court ...

• Those who offer help on their own terms ...

• Those who will help you, but make you feel guilty about it ...

• Those who are always there, ready and willing to help with anything.

Military spouses don't like to ask for help. No one does. But the ideal type of helpers who are "always there" are few and far-between.

Corbett's solution? Collect them all. Create a Personal Assistance League ("PAL")—a list of 10 or more people who are explicitly committed to helping out with small tasks, like babysitting, or leaf-raking, or cooking meals. She even recommends nominating a "mother hen" to help reach out to people, on the phone or in writing, asking for a concrete commitment.

In Army-speak, Corbett may have cracked the code on how to operationalize people's good-intentions. By establishing expectations and requirements up-front on a schedule, and sharing the load, everybody wins.

*****

One "Red Bull" connection of note: Corbett dedicates her book to the memory of U.S. Army First Lt. Nathan A. Nieber, 26, was killed in a 2002 boating accident while on stateside active-duty with the 2nd Battalion, 135th Infantry Regiment (2-135 Inf. Reg.), 34th Infantry Division, Minnesota National Guard.

Disclosure: The Red Bull Rising blog received a review copy of this book.

Letters from the Gulf, Part II

Blog-editor's note: This is the second part of a 1990 essay, which summarized the pre-war correspondence of my father, who had deployed to Operation Desert Shield as a U.S. Air Force Reserve navigator on a C-130 aircrew.

For the first part of this essay, as well as additional historical background, click here.

*****

'SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS' continued ...

Dad also took great delight in telling the family about the "hooch," as well as other places he had to call "home."

"Quarters are real spartan! We slept in a tent last night," he wrote. "The cots plus being tired made our evening's rest very adequate. In the UAE, we have a 'wood' box with a door for 12. I believe the term male bonding comes to mind" (Sept. 15)

Dad later wrote more about his hooch, which on the bad days and nights quartered two aircrews, about 12 personnel.

"Out house is a plywood 12 x 25 box with a door, two small windows, and two air conditioners," he wrote. "The Furniture is limited to 14 beds, 3 folding chairs, and 1 concrete block with board table. Finding a place to put the 'stuff' is tuff. The B-4 bags and A-3's [different types of Air Force-issue luggage] are pushed under the beds just to give a bit of walking space." (Sept. 18)

Still, one gets the feeling Dad wasn't complaining. At least, not too much.

"A Marine sgt. [on Bahrain] that he was ready and already tired of waiting," Dad wrote. "I should that add that even with our spartan conditions we living at the Holiday Inn compared to the Marines. They had basic tents with no sun shades. War is hell!" (Sept. 19).

I've seen pictures of the "Chi-town Sheik Shack" (Each hooch had its own name, apparently, if not its own Frisbee golf course.) The crews apparently got into constructing lampshades, shelves, even a working 'refrigerator' out of cardboard, red duct tape, and one of the air conditioners. If Necessity is the mother of invention, Boredom must be the father.

*****

Dad usually opened his letters with some discussion of setting, the weather and what he was doing besides writing letters.

"The weather here on an island in the land of O is hot and clear during the day," he started in a typical letter. "The breeze starts coolking things off at sunset which makes sleeping great. The big part of the day is make passable by living in our air conditioned tent. Isn't that a dichotomy in terms?"

He started another, "It is 8 p.m. here and I am in front of our hooch enjoying the evening. There is a breeze and a bit of noise from a C-130 engine run about 50 yards away. I hope the place moves soon or my just move inside and forget the evening breeze." (Sept. 22)

*****

One of Dad's more significant themes seems to have been the "all this stuff that's out here nowhere" motif. Rather than set it up myself, here it is in all its basic continuity:

I would tell you where I'm located, but it isn't on the maps. The same is true of the airports we're operating into. I wonder how some of these complexes got built in these locations—they are in the middle of nowhere and without roads, etc. (Sept. 19)

I am still amazed at the places we are operating into. They are large complexes with major runways and accessories. The fact they don't appear in the airfield directory and on our charts is also interesting. It would appear that our "hosts" are well prepared in some ways to defend themselves. (Sept. 26)

We flew into Jeddah, SA yesterday and I found it hard to believe. According to some ground personnel, the airport is built to handle up to 1 million people a day during the "Holy" days. From the size and numbers of facilities, I would think that handling that number is possible. What makes it hard to believe is that all this construction is at the middle of the desert and nowhere. (Sept. 29)

I'm still both impressed and depressed by this land. We fly for hours and view nothing but sand and rocks—miles + miles of wasteland. then in the middle of nowhere we'll find a four-lane divided highway that goes nowhere but runs for miles. The depressing part is the money that is spent on facilities that have no real purpose. (Sept. 30)

That's about as political as Dad got.

*****

So what have I learned from reading my mother's mail? A little about the war, if one chooses to call it such, a little about Dad, and a little about the way I write. There's something in the phrasing, "ready and already," "impressed and depressed," that smacks familiar, not to mention the continual discovery of dichotomy and oxymoron. That's not where I want to end this, however. I've been saving that part until the end.

*****

Dad's always had a particular sign-off, which I once regarded as dangerously close to affected, which I now find myself using in the appropriate settings. (We are doomed to become our fathers.) Through the years, he's said it enough that it seems natural enough, and it seems right that chose to close his many letters with "see you in my dreams."

"I'm sure glad I'm getting paid to do this because I would hate to pay for this tour. Got to go—see you in my dreams." (Sept. 30)

If his letters brought the war home, that phrase brought Dad home. Even before he got back.

Letters from the Gulf, Part I

Blog-editor's note: The following essay was written in November 1990, when I was my last semester of journalism school. The assignment wasn't for journalism class, however. The class was an experimental one, an interdisciplinary exploration of American identity and family history. It was taught by Bob Woodward—the other Bob Woodward, the one who had worked at the Washington Star, rather than the Post.

Sorry, some inside jokes never get old.

I must've kept the paper as much for Woodward's red-ink marks as I did to in order to preserve my sentiments. I'm glad I did on both fronts. Who could've predicted that, more than 20 years later, I'd find myself writing about similar themes: citizen-soldiers, overseas deployments, family histories.

I've decided to share the essay with Red Bull Readers, inspired by the examples provided earlier this week by Kurt Greenbaum's "Well, Happy, and Safe" blog-project, as well as Daniel Gade's "In the Event of My Death" project. Here's the lesson-learned: Everyday letters or words can help family members understand not only where we've been as citizen-soldiers, but who we were when we went.

In November 1990, my father had just returned from a 30-day deployment to Operation Desert Shield as a member of the 928th Tactical Airlift Wing, a U.S. Air Force Reserve unit that flew out of O'Hare Air Reserve Station, near Chicago. I was approximately 30 days away from graduation, and about to receive a commission in the U.S. Army. My father would administer my oath of enlistment. Because Uncle Sam had paid for two years of my schooling, and because of ongoing preparations in the Persian Gulf, I anticipated I would be ordered to 4 years of active-duty service.

The United States was then ramping up toward Operation Desert Storm. The Air War launched on Jan. 17, 1991. The Ground War launched on Feb. 23, 1991. Despite the uncertainty of post-graduate life, I joked that I was in the safest place in the Army—I was an untrained officer, unlikely to be placed into a position of harming himself or others. I still had an basic specialty course to complete, which, depending on my assignment, could range from three to six months of additional military schooling. Army school would start sometime within 12 months of my civilian graduation.

I figured the war would be there when I got back. I was wrong.

*****

'SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS'

Dad went off to war again in October.

It wasn't a "war" then, even if it later became one. It wasn't a "police action," or even a "conflict." If anything, it was a "deployment."

Dad's first war was Vietnam. That didn't start out as a "war," either, but during my own lifetime I've seen it grow into one.

Dad's second war was deployment to the Persian Gulf. It could have just as easily been a war, what with the press pandering to the public's worst fears of inevitable bloodshed in the Middle East. The perception was the reality, at least at that point.

*****

Mom said she never expected to go through it again, which I took at the time to mean she never expected to have Dad to again go off for weeks or months. Later on, I suspected she was talking more about war, about the chance of losing Dad.

She also said something about how friends and family might somehow be more concerned about Dad than she was, the military experience being a bit foreign to most. Mom probably wasn't less concerned about Dad than the rest of the world, but she was used to it, as much as one can be.

*****

As a young Air Force officer and navigator, Dad flew tactical airlift in Vietnam—a C-130 "Hercules", big four-prop camouflaged trash-haulers capable of flying in and out of just about anything, carrying just about anything. Dad's Vietnam experience was stereotypical Air Force—when he got close enough to the ground war, he didn't have to stay for long.

Almost 20 years later, Dad wore silver clusters instead of silver bars. He was back to flying C-130s, though, and he was back to flying in and around it.

His Air Force reserve unit supplied volunteers to Operation Desert Shield for 30-day rotations. Long enough to get the idea.

*****

This fall, Ken Burns' 11-hour public television series brought home the human drama of the Civil War not only through the words of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, but through the letters and diaries of the more common soldier and spouse.

The series so possessed the public mind that Newsweek magazine put the Civil War on its cover.

More recently, Newsweek magazine devoted a cover article to "Letters in the Sand." Like the Civil War series, that article brought the military experience home to America in real, personal terms.

For 30 days, Dad's letters brought the war home to Mom, in real, personal terms.

*****

Dad wrote about 10 letters to Mom during his 30 days, plus a couple to me at school and few to his folks. They were usually short, two pages at most, and on USO "Home Away From Home" stationery. He consistently stuck to four themes: the military mind, the "hooch," the weather, and how many things one could find in the middle of nowhere.

Throughout his writing, he managed to keep his sense of humor in play. He had to.

"The arrival was generally a mess," he wrote Sept. 15, having just gotten off a Tower Airlines jumbo jet. "Four hundred people with a pile of baggage can create a real disaster. Add to that—400 people leaving with a similar pile of baggage and I believe you've got the idea. [...]"

Dad continue to note examples of the ever-present, ever-oxymoronic "military intelligence." He wrote, "I might add the similarity between this 'Op' and 'Nam is the mentality of keeping 'military.' The edict yesterday was no sweatbands are to be worn with the uniform—unless working. Give me a break." (Sept. 21)

And on Sept. 22:

All is find as long as we keep finding things to do—fly and shop, etc. We are finding some of the precautions that are being observed are really "crowd control." I read that the Arabs are pleased to have our support but worry that we will influence their way of life. To reduce this "contact" our commanders are restricting our movements out side of our operational area. (compounds). What is amusing is that the UAE is currently 80% foreign nationals—I guess "they" don't influence the Arabs?

In a similar story, Dad grew fond of telling the about the safety briefing his crew received staying overnight in Cairo, which achieved record levels of contradiction. It went something like:

• Don't go anywhere alone.

• Don't go anywhere in groups.

• Don't leave the hotel.

• Don't be predictable in movement or routine. (The hotel bus to the airport left at the same time every day, however. Probably travelled by the same route, too.)

And one other favorite of mine, about one day's mission: "Just two stops but long legs with a rather interesting load—bomb parts made by Texas Instruments. Seems to be a dichotomy there somewhere."

[Editor's note: More than 20 years later, this last joke falls a little flat. Dad went to work for an avionics manufacturer for a few years after leaving the active-duty Air Force in 1979, so this might've been a jab against a former competitor. Operation Desert Storm also saw the first large-scale employment of smart-bomb technology by U.S. forces. He might have been making a wary reference to technologies the public was about to be seen on the nightly news for the first time. After all, since when did bombs drop where people actually wanted them?]

To be continued in the next Red Bull Rising blog-post ...

Coming Home on a Bungee Cord

The polka band knows approximately five songs, running the gamut from "In Heaven There is No Beer" to a tuba-heavy version of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train."

I have to shout over the beat and blat of the music. "How long have you been here?"

Saber2th looks at his watch. "At least three 'Crazy Trains,'" he shouts back.

There's a quirky protocol when it comes to buddies who are back on military leave.

First off, you don't call them--they call you. They only have a few precious days here to spend, after all, and wives, kids, dogs, and home repairs are all higher on the food chain than Army buddies. If and when they call, however, you make sure to go. It's like a getting served a subpoena or notice of a "command performance," even if they don't outrank you.

Call it a "drunken muster."

A decidedly unshaven Saber2th is back from Afghanistan for two weeks, and has decided to hold court at the Central Iowa's only authentic German bier hall. "I made sure to have shaving cream for him when he got home," Saber2th-6 says, shaking her head. "What was I thinking?" I ask her how long he's been home, and how long it took for the novelty to wear off. She smiles a tolerant smile. I've seen that expression before, in my own home.

She tells me later: "I would've wanted this leave to happen in March, when we'd have only a few months left," As it stands right now, however, they're only halfway through the deployment. The Saber2ths have two younger kids, the same ages as my own. Managing the kids solo has been a little rough, she says, but having her husband back has been a good reminder of how it's supposed to be.

Every deployed family has a different strategy for taking mid-tour military leave.

One soldier friend recently chose to meet up with his wife in New York City, then absconded with her to some tropical island somewhere. Another says he'll similarly meet up with his wife and kids at a neutral location, rather than traveling all the way home. That way, he hopes, the kids won't feel like he's ripping the emotional stitches off regarding his year-long absence. One stay-at-home (this time) soldier says his pre-teen kids say they don't want to see his wife at all during her deployment--only when she gets to come home to stay for good. Or, more realistically, until one of their parents has to deploy again.

Someone hands me a beer in a tall but not entirely unmanly glass. I don't catch the description of what I'm about to drink. The beer names here are longer than Wagner's Ring Cycle, and I don't speak German, other than a little conversational Def Leppard. Setting my buddy up for a war story, I jokingly ask if the beer is called "schutzenschnur."

"Hey, that's German for learning how to shoot some NATO weapons and not hurting yourself," says Saber2th. "They give you a badge for it and everything!" God love him and the U.S. Cavalry--he's not entirely joking.

I'm introduced to some others present as "that guy with the blog." Later, I realize that I have perhaps missed my one opportunity in life to be addressed as "Meisterblogger Bloggermeister."

Saber2th and I do get to talk a little shop, although spousal proximity prohibits too many details. That's another unwritten rule about mid-tour leave: Don't talk about Fight Club. At least, not with family present.

Still, he reports our Red Bull cohorts are both doing well and doing good, although a few soldiers have tripped up on the details. "Counterinsurgency is pretty easy. Rule No. 1 of Counterinsurgency is 'Don't be a douche-bag,'" he says. "Rule No. 2: 'Don't drive 80 miles an hour throwing your piss bottles at people.' but it's been kind of surprising that we've got guys who can't even get those two things right."

Our group ends up sharing a large booth with a bunch of brunettes--endo-, meso-, and ectomorphic Barbies--so the single guys in our posse swivel their turrets to start winning hearts and minds and telephone numbers. Instead of shots fired, or shots heard round the world, the night devolves into shots bought round the table.

Meanwhile, a hipster wearing a bright orange T-shirt and a beige blazer somehow starts chatting up the Saber2ths. Turns out, their group is from the local metropolitan opera. "It's our first night off in 2-and-a-half weeks," the guy complains. Saber2th rolls his eyes instead of punching the guy. They don't get weekends off in Afghanistan.

In just a week or two, he'll be right back at it, and so will his wife and kids here at home.

Tonight, however, it's a few stolen moments of beers and buddies and brass instruments, of not getting too caught up in the details, and avoiding fisticuffs with opera singers and shield maidens.

In Bagram, there is no beer. That's why we drink it here ...

Going off the rails on a crazy train.

Cooking Up Some Red Bull Love

Sometimes, particularly during the holidays, it's too easy to focus on sending deployed troops stuff they really don't need, and too hard to focus on the daily challenges their families face here at home.

"I don't think you understand," Household-6 says to me one night. "When you were away, I felt like I never had any time. It was always onto the next thing. I'd get dinner made, and then it was time to get the kids ready for bed. I'd get the kids to bed, and then it was time to get the kids clothes ready for the next day ..."

Yeah, I know--"food isn't love." Sometimes, however, it can come in a close second. For a couple of years, off and on, Household-6 has leveraged her love of cooking into her way of helping others. She got the idea a couple of years back, when we were a member a church that had a "Ministry through Meals" committee. If there was a birth, death, or sickness in a family, for example--whenever people didn't have time to take care of themselves because they were focused on bigger, more important things--this group would help out by preparing and delivering meals.

With the deployment of my buddies in the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division, Household-6 decided to again pick up the spatula. She's cooking one meal a week for one or two other Red Bull families.

The way she sees it, she's not providing food to these families--she's providing time. Time they don't have to worry about grocery shopping. Time they don't have to cook. Time to think. Time they can spend focused on their kids.

It's good food, but not nothing too gourmet. Household-6 works it into her busy schedule by preparing extra servings of whatever is on the Sherpa family menu that day. The menu rotates, but it's usually the same day every week. "It's what I'd want someone to offer to do for me, if you had been deployed," she tells me.

People often struggle to find ways to help National Guard families. They even struggle to find ways to inquire if and how and when to help--nobody wants to be nosy or invasive, after all, particularly at the holidays.

I want to ask you to give into your better impulses. Take a chance, and ask someone if you can help.

Before you tell yourself you have nothing to bring to the proverbial table, however, consider these words from Natalie, a self-described "homefront warrior," Red Bull spouse and occasional blogger, and mother of two small children:

It’s [...] not my nature to ask for help, even when I should, and I suspect that is a quality shared by many of my fellow homefront warriors.

That said, please do something for me--if you know any military families (besides me, obviously) with a deployed service member, please find out how you can help, and then follow through. Just saying, “Call me if you need anything,” doesn’t usually cut it, because that leaves the ball in her (or his) court, and she’s already juggling too many of them in the first place. Find out what needs are there and do something, even something small, to help meet them.

In general, there is too little of this type of service to neighbors in the world right now, and sometimes those who are doing their best to seem together on the outside are the ones that need help the most.

(Be sure to read all of her thoughts on the subject here.)

Sherpa says: Be persistent, be insistent, be consistent. Ask what you can do. Commit to it. And make sure you deliver.

Have fun with it, too!

Consider this wonderfully funny story from Red Bull spouse and blogger Emily, who describes how two friends recently helped prepare her house for the holidays:

At a few minutes after 10 AM, just out of the shower, towel wrapped around my head and in my bathrobe, I came downstairs to check on Asher ... and there is a knock at my door ...

My dear friend Erin was standing on my front porch ... and as I opened the door, it was too late.

I had been ambushed.

Erin & Jodi were standing on my porch. With cleaning buckets and supplies. And boxes of decorations and ornaments. And wine. And Velveeta Magic dip.

SERIOUSLY. Ambushed.

The dog was barking, the kid was running around screaming, and I was not wearing any underwear. WHAT were my friends thinking?

I was certain we were still shopping. "I'm not ready to go shopping! You said 10:30!" I protested.

"We're not shopping. YOU can go shopping. We're putting up your Christmas tree & cleaning your house," they said.

(Read the full story--with pictures--here.)

It doesn't have to be food, but it does have to be love. Done right, it might take only a little effort, and result in a whole lot of fun. Do the Red Bull a favor this holiday season--and throughout the coming new year--and see what you can cook up.

*****

What are some ways in which you've helped Red Bull families, or had others help you? Share your ideas in the comments section below!

Take your Foot off the Fire-Gas

More notes from Annual Training, which took place at Camp Ripley, Minn., in June 2010:

At risk of a certain amount of sibilance this morning, I must state that soldiers are neither saints nor sinners, but simply citizens under stress. We're not perfect, and we know it.

For better and for worse, every deployed dog-soldier has his day.

Take, for example, this cautionary tale, recently told by one barracks wag--a buddy who graciously allowed me to report it here:

During Annual Training at Camp Ripley, Minn., my buddy's wife had texted him from behind the wheel of his $2,000 riding mower. "Something is clanking," she wrote.

Instant messaging isn't always instant, however: He received her message 45 minutes later. "GET OFF THE MOWER NOW," he replied.

"Too late." Soon after her original message, the engine first sputtered, smoked, then seized.

It turns out that she had used the yellow gas can, the one with diesel fuel in it--the stuff that my buddy uses to burn weeds and trash on his acreage. Apparently, his 3-year-old son had tried to ask, "Mommy, why are you putting fire-gas in the mower?" The warning, unfortunately, wasn't understood until it was too late.

My buddy was hot when this happened. He did the wrong thing. He poured gas on the fire. "If this is what you do on Day 2 of my being gone," he says he said, "I can hardly wait to see what you come up with for the rest of the 482 days!"

He called back later to apologize. "Obviously," he says.

My buddy is a stand-up guy, a role model for me and others. No question, I'd follow him in firefight. But it's important to remember that even stand-up guys can have a bad day. Downrange, the trick is going to be to learn how not let our individual bad days spark hurtful words with our spouses. Today's communications technologies make it too easy to light fires of frustration. Words can hurt. Words can leave everyone feeling burned.

I hope I can learn from The Fire-Gas Incident, to take extra care to be understanding and supportive through the telephone lines. I'm going to make mistakes. So is my wife. We need to be open to that. Name-calling and I-told-you-so's don't get anybody anywhere but miles away from each other.

At the same time, I need to remember that figuratively counting to "10" before hitting the "send" key is probably a good e-mail practice.

My Army rifle has a safety on it, after all--why shouldn't my e-mail account?

Breaking Fast

Sometimes, I skip breakfast chow so that I can lay in my rack and think about my wife.

I still get up at 0515 hours, grab a shower, put on the Army pants. But then I re-set my alarm and cast myself adrift in my sleeping bag for a few blissful minutes, while the other guys are still shuffling off to the shower. If I'm lucky, in my post-Revelie reverie, I get a chance to enjoy a few appropriately inappropriate daydreams about my wife. Happy, cuddily, non-Army-type thoughts.

It's worth going hungry for.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love breakfast. Some of the boldest schemes in which I have ever participated have been hatched over eggs and sausage and biscuits and coffee--lots and lots of coffee. And words. And friends. Back when we were young and planning to rule the world, we used to call them "Big Idea Breakfasts." They were grand.

Breakfast, like they say, is the most important part of the day.

It was in partial celebration of this outlook that inspired Household-6 and I to host a brunch reception on our wedding day. (Although every time she recounts the tale, the hour she allegedly had to wake up to get married gets earlier and earlier. Still, it's a great story.)

Fast-forward back here to the military life: Army breakfasts are usually pretty good, if unimaginative and repetitive and unimaginative. Typically, only the meat changes: bacon one day, sausage the next, ham the next, until the menu rotation starts again.

There's always potatoes in some form, and sometimes another starch. I started eating grits in the Army halfway through my Basic Training, because there's only so much you and Uncle Sam can do with a potato. Grits, on the other hand? There are a thousand ways you can doctor grits: butter, salt, jam, cheese--you name it. Even a Midwestern Yankee like me can't screw them up too bad.

Here at Camp Ripley, the contractor providing meals (in the new Army, our cooks rarely get a chance to actually prepare meals) provides jalapeno peppers with nearly every meal--breakfast and dinner. So add a side of jalapenos to the list of Things Sherpa Enjoys While in Uniform but Not So Much Anytime Else: Grits, Country-Western music, and second-hand smoke.

Jalapenos and grits? I'd like to try that some time, but Minnesota ain't exactly grits country, apparently.

In a couple of days, I'll be back home in Iowa for a few weeks. The kids will be with the grandparents a few days prior to Independence Day, and Household-6 and I may actually have a chance to dreamily ease into a few mornings together--just like old times--rather than adhere to our usual "3-year-old drill sergeant" routine.

I plan to wake up when I want to. I plan to lay there, between sheets and wakefulness, counting my blessings with every breath. I will think how much I love my wife and my life. I will think of my kids.

And, eventually, I will think of what to have for breakfast.

P.A.C.E. Your Family's Communications Plan

I'm really not a survivalist type, but, given the "what-if" natures of both my civilian and military jobs, I can get real paranoid real fast when it comes to safety, security, and emergency preparedness. Still, I'm probably more of a "prepper" than a "survivalist." I tend to make plans rather than all-out preparations.

And, given my experience as an Army radio-telephone operator (R.T.O.), I usually focus on communications as a place to start.

Most of the time, I try to dial it back a little, so as not to scare others. For example, when I asked my kids' daycare provider about what their communications plan for winter school closings, I forced myself NOT to follow-up with a question about what the plan would be if the high-school next door was locked down for a bomb threat or a shooting incident.

(Before you ask--yes, I can either be real fun at parties, or a big downer. Depends on your perspective, I suppose, and whether my glass has yet been half-emptied on that particular evening.)

My kid brother lives in the San Francisco Bay area--earthquake country. His kids' daycare maintains an on-site semi-trailer full of parentally provided emergency backpacks, each of which contain supplies enough to take care of a kid for a couple of days.

I think this is brilliant--the administrators are obviously thinking about the unthinkable. Even if (when?) the "big one" hits, crashing phone systems and curdling pavement, parents will know that their kids will be OK. There's no "failure of imagination" at that daycare!

Soldiers and their families can incorporate a similar approach toward deployment. To help sort through the host of 21st century communications options--including e-mail, Facebook, web cameras, telephones--I recommend a "PACE" communications plan. Yep, it's the same way we talk it in the military:

Primary. What's the most-preferred means of communications?

Alternate. As a back-up to the primary, what's the second-most-prefered means of communications?

Contingency. What is the means of communications if something big and bad happens--think earthquakes and floods and hurricanes--an event that eliminates the possibility of using the Primary or Alternate? In other words, where and how would the soldier contact his/her family, if the family suddenly was without all services, or had to evacuate cross-country? One tip: Designate an out-of-state contact person that everyone (including the overseas soldier) can call to check-in; long-distance phone lines can sometimes function when local service has been cut.

Emergency. How will the soldier be notified if there's a death or illness in the family? Believe it or not, this may be the easiest part of the plan on which to agree. That's because the American Red Cross is the emergency channel of choice for communicating such information to soldiers. Red Cross notification and verification is required for getting a soldier emergency leave, when feasible. Click here for an overview of the message process; note that the procedure is the same, whether a National Guard soldier is deployed overseas or merely at stateside Annual Training.

In your family's plans, remember that there will be times that communications will simply not work downrange, possibly for days at a time. Time and technology work more slowly overseas. Internet and phone services in-country might be slow, unreliable, and unsecure. They may also be temporarily cut in order for official communications to take priority. Postal mail delivery may also be slow, depending on a soldier's location.

Because of these reasons, many military families adopt a "no news is good news" approach. Any message of significance--an injury, for example--would come either directly from the soldier, or through official channels. Otherwise, make a plan and figure out what mutually works best.

On my first deployment, my wife and I decided to avoid using e-mail much, if for no other reason than we mutually consider "romantic e-mail" to be a contradiction in terms. Our phone calls were weekly, at best--the time-difference made it hard to find the right time to call, and the long pauses and delays caused by the satellite system forced us to sometimes use radio procedure words such as "OVER" and "OUT."

I also had to train myself out of "chief household problem-solver" mode; when Household-6 told me about a problem--a leaky faucet, for example--I had to realize that she'd probably already taken care of it. It wasn't my job to fix her problems while I was away. Instead, my role while deployed was listen to her problems, and offer support and ideas as I could.

I might seem paranoid sometimes, but apparently I can be a sensitive guy, too.

At least, that's what some people say. Sounds like a worst-case scenario to me.

The Counts Down

Summertime has slipped into Iowa early this year--one need only to look at the sultry morning mists over the duck pond to see evidence of it, or to feel the sweaty breath of humidity in the Midwestern wind.

Thank God for the wind. Without it, one could easily suffocate in the middle of an open field.

The Tactical Operation Center's air-conditioner, the one we had to break in order to save earlier this spring, now does little to fend off the sun oozing into our little brick medical shanty. The building was probably built before World War I, and was no doubt site of some influenza pandemic. As such, it was originally designed to invite in fresh air and breezes, but there's no more of that now. Now, the TOC seems more like a powder keg. Moods are more shortly fuzed.

"So am I deployed already or WHAT?!" The staff sergeant is pretty steamed. He's just added up the nights he has left at home. Here's how the math works: Number of days before Mobilization-Day ("M-day"), minus three weeks of Annual Training (A.T.--in a normal year, we'd only do two), minus "advance-party" scouting trips to various places and bases. If you're lucky, what you're left with is how many more nights you get to sleep in your own bed, with your own wife, to be awakened by your own dog.

More and more, maybe without even realizing it, the guys and I have been counting down the days.

I've caught myself counting in other ways, too: How many more times am I going to tuck my kids into bed? How many more stuffed-animal stories will I tell them? How many more times will I steal warmth by snuggling alongside my wife? How many more times will I mow the lawn, fix the sink, attempt to clean the garage? How many more times am I going to enjoy air-conditioning, or porcelain toilets, or privacy?

Household-6 said months ago: "You're pretty much deployed already." At the time, we'd been re-negotiating the daily routine: Who drops the kids at daycare, who picks them up, who shuttles and shuffles off to dance class--that sort of thing. I'd denied it at the time, but she was right.

In this stifling purgatory of neither citizen-nor-soldier, I have to regularly remind myself that I'm one of the lucky ones. When I came onto "temporary stateside pre-mobilization active-duty" orders--when I started wearing the uniform everyday, rather than once a month--my daily commute shifted all of three miles. I still live at home.

Compare that to my warrior-monk TOC buddies, who schlep in every Monday from the four corners of Iowa--Souix Falls and Council Bluffs, Dubuque and Burlington--returning to their families only on the weekends they're not otherwise on duty. During the week, they camp out in the barracks, or temporary bachelor-apartment digs off-post. They're already burning the midnight oil in the TOC, because there's little else for them to do. Sleep, wake, eat, work, go to gym, work some more, repeat ...

I can't remember how I came upon it, but I recently read a 2007 SpouseBUZZ post that really stuck with me. It discussed how it's not a good idea to compare who's going to have it worse--the soldier who's deployed downrange, or the spouse who's left managing everything else. In my recent conversations with Household-6, I've borrowed both the sentiment and a few words from comments made to that post, including: "Deployment sucks. Necessary, yes, but it sucks on both sides."

In other words, better not to dwell on who's got it worse. Instead, focus on sharing the load.

Or, with apologies to Earnest Hemingway and John Donne (but probably mostly to Donne, because I think Hemingway might've actually appreciated what I'm about to say):

"Do not ask for whom deployment sucks. It sucks for thee."