"exasperated" also applies. Our forces are eating their own now. Good going.
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=21765Time to come home
A month after I found out I was pregnant, I found out my husband was being deployed to Iraq for a year.
During the first six months of the deployment I had almost every pregnancy complication you could think of, one being that my water broke at 25 weeks. I was put in the hospital for three miserable, lonely weeks. My water finally sealed itself enough for me to be released home on bed rest. I ended up having to go to the States.
I had my baby a month later, on Sept. 20, four weeks early. I was thrilled to find out all my doctors’ worries that my baby would be born deformed were wrong. He was small but perfect. My husband was shocked when he called my mother and she told him he had a son.
When my son turned 3 months old, I find out that he had a neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that forms tumors all over the body and that, in most cases, is found after the cancer is terminal.
A week and a half after we found out, they had the baby scheduled for emergency surgery. I had sent a Red Cross message to my husband the day I found out, but he had only received it when I gave him the dispatch number and he had them look. They told him that someone had received it a few days before and had forgotten to give it to him. Luckily, my husband made it home in time to see our son before they put him to sleep.
The surgery went very well and last month they released us to come back to Germany to be treated here so we could be home when my husband returned. We got in the day before they extended them.
My son cries every day for his dad. He’s been through a lot for only being 29 weeks old. He only wants to be around his daddy and I can’t give him that. I understand, somewhat, why my husband’s being extended, but my son and all the other children don’t. The guys are tired and worn out and just want to be home with their families. I’m just one of the many people wanting our soldiers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, mommies and daddies home. I’m very proud of my husband, but it’s time he comes home.
Jessica Bailey
Bumholder, Germany
Exended twice
This is for all you active-duty soldiers and family members that are yelling and screaming about being extended. We all feel really bad for you and your families, but get over it.
I don’t know if you read the paper much but Reserve and National Guard units were extended six moths ago, making our tours 13 to 17 months for Operation Iraqi Freedom. If you read the April 16 paper, we have been extended again (two times). If you read the list of troops to be extended, look how many of us (Reserve and National Guard units) are on the list. My unit, the 211 Transportation Company, is not even on there. We were told just 24 hours ago. That will make our tour 21 months for us so-called “weekend warriors.”
So when you go through a 21-month tour, let me know and all of us Reserve and National Guard will feel sorry for you. And don’t think because we are in Kuwait that we have not done missions in Iraq. We have.
Sgt. Steve Garza
Kuwait Naval Base