Picture Messaging from Afghanistan

I love getting picture messages.  Today my husband sent me a picture from work.  Seeing him makes my insides melt.  I miss him so much.  Stupid deployment keeping me away from him.  I love the fact he is a Soldier.  I just hate the separation.

Google Talk and the Blackberry

So Ben and I have discovered that we can chat via Google talk mobile to mobile.  I am on my DROID and he is on his Blackberry Storm 2.  We are blessed because I don't have to wait for him to log onto his laptop at a internet cafe in order for me to get ahold of him, and he can email things back and forth to each other with little issue.

It does become an issue when the network goes down.  You see, even though we are on an international data services plan with Verizon, all cell phone providers regardless of their name, must use existing towers over there in order to send/receive data information.  Since Ben is located in an area not known for its vast technological capabilities, we are dependent on those towers to stay active. 

Case in point. Today we tried to chat and he had no network connection.  Usually his phone connects to an Indian provider which gives him little problem.  When that network goes down his phone connects to a backup network, in this case an afghani network, which does not do crap for data exchange. 

He was pretty ticked that he had to go to the internet cafe to log onto chat with me (and it is a nuisance) but I am relieved he has the capability of doing so.  Some of our friends do not even have internet connections where they are located, and their spouses may hear from them once a week at the most.  I do think it is remarkable, that even in an archaic setting, we are capable of communicating mobile to mobile with very little issue.  If this had been Desert Storm, we both would have been forced to handwrite letters to each other and been forced to wait for the letters to arrive.

I love you Ben.. I am just grateful that as we journey through this first deployment we can talk to each other with little issue.

Happy is NOT Memorial Day

When I hear somebody tell me "happy memorial day" my blood boils.  I hope my friend Debra never has to hear it. Her marine husband's tank missed tracking on a bridge by one inch back in 2003, flipped upside down into the murky waters of the Euphrates, and all of his fellow marines on board drowned.  It is pretty hard to overturn 35,000 lbs of metal or open a hatch (which used to be on top of the tank).  Please don't say it to my friend Jenny who lost her best friend in 2006 to an IED in Baghdad and her husband last December to an IED in Afghanistan.  She sure as heck isn't happy today.

I am not trying to be cranky, but in reality when somebody carelessly tosses out that phrase, I often wonder if they have truly thought about the sacrifices made by these military families.  I betcha if they did they would say "thank you" rather than "happy"...because death is permanent and today needs to be about remembering those who died.   Rest in Peace...Don, Dennis and Benny....