Army Announces Nine Month Deployment Cycles

I know I am not the only Army wife who is cheering at the news release from the DOD about the newly shortened deployment cycles.  Nine months is nothing to sneeze about, but when you are used to a 13, 15, or even 18 month cycle, this news rocks!  Check it out.  Basically as our operations slow down, the length of time our soldiers will be deployed will also shorten.  

Read all about it here.  

I am doing the happy dance!

OPSEC and Why I Keep My Mouth Shut

This is a reminder of why it is important for us to maintain our silence.....how quickly we forget that there are Terrorists out there monitoring our web activity.

By being a Family Member, you will often know some bits of critical information regarding our unit such as flight schedules, ship movements, installation activities, homecoming dates, and our Soldiers’ locations. This is sensitive information that needs to be concealed and protected, so please DO NOT discuss them outside of your immediate Family and especially not over the telephone or on the computer/Internet.


Your diligence in Operations Security (OPSEC) is key to ensuring our effectiveness in operations and our collective safety. When reintegration nears, I completely understand how excited everyone will get – it is great news – but it is not news that needs to be posted/said for anyone to read/hear. With resources such as Facebook and MySpace, it is easy to slip up and post, “One more month until my Soldier comes home,” “Our 12 month deployment is almost over . . . just one more week,” or “My Soldier will be on the Main Body flight coming in on 15 January,” but PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING SIMILAR TO THIS – anyone can access your information online. You can protect your Family and friends by protecting what you know of the unit’s day-to-day operations. There are many countries and organizations that would like to harm Americans and degrade our influence in the world, and many of them collect significant amounts of useful information by using spies.

OPSEC is a vital element in protecting our Soldiers and missions, and I want to stress how vital a role every member of our Battalion plays in ensuring that we deny our adversaries potentially useful information. OPSEC protects our operations – planned, in progress, and those completed. Even though information may not be secret, it can be what we call “critical information.” Critical information deals with specific facts about military intentions, capabilities, operations and activities. If an adversary knew this detailed information, our mission accomplishment and personnel safety could be jeopardized. It must be protected to ensure an adversary doesn’t gain a significant advantage.

Here are a few things to remember:

Limit what you say about:

- Military movements (deployment/redeployment dates, dates of field exercises, flight information, etc.)…next Tuesday is a specific date

- Any issues with the unit

- Anything concerning security specific issues

- Equipment issues (what, no flak vest?)

- Locations of units (it’s OK to say they’re in Iraq, but not to say specifically where located)

OPSEC measures you should practice daily:

- Be aware of your surroundings

- Keep sensitive discussions in designated secure areas

- Keep a need-to-know attitude (if they don’t need to know, don’t tell them)

- Safeguard sensitive but unclassified information

Some other things to keep in mind:

- Make sure that your Family knows that the information you tell them is to stay between you and them

- Limit what you say on telephones. Whether they’re land lines, cordless or cells phones, they can all be ‘tapped’. Try using code words, or use birthday and anniversaries as time frames – i.e. “Our vacation will be two months after my grandmother’s birthday.”

- Censor what you put in e-mails. Anything sent out on the Internet can be seen by anyone on the Internet. (Keep in mind that the AKO and vFRG website is a secure site, hence why certain information can be posted there.)

- Limit what you say out in public. You never know who is trying to listen in on your conversations

Thank you all for taking the time to read this e-mail. Please, let’s all practice better OPSEC guidelines and protect ourselves and our Soldiers . . . watch what you say and watch what you do!

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

As You Wish

Without fail my husband calls me his Princess Bride every single day when he greets me or when he signs off for the night. It is his nickname for me. When he does say it, I always think of this scene, but now I can honestly say that I don't know what to think. I am bossy, so the fact that Buttercup orders Wesley makes me look like a jerk. LOL...

To be perfectly honest. I am truly blessed. I really do have the most amazing husband! I love you baby!

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.

My Life As The Third Wheel

I keep joking that I need to carry a lifesize cardboard cutout of Ben around with me and document my experiences/adventures. After tonight I am seriously considering it. I met up with a few friends at Forsyth Park for the annual SCAD alumni concert to see G Love and Special Sauce. The music bored me, but that is besides the point. With everybody coupled up, Ben's absence made things awkward and I felt like a third wheel. To amuse myself I repeatedly pulled my phone out to check and see if he had logged on to google talk yet.

As stoned hippies danced to the hypnotic riffs emenating from the stage, I wanted to do something or even share the amusement of people watching with Ben. Sadly, this was not going to be the case, so I sat there with an overwhelming sense of sadness that 7500 miles separated us and there wasn't a darn thing I could do abou it. I don't know how other Army wives handle things, but I think a little comedic relief to break up the monotony of this deployment is in order.

What do you think?

Sacrifice, Duty and Honor

I am numb. I just found out that a friend I used to talk to on the phone almost daily lost her husband to an IED on 7th of December 2009 in Afghanistan. No wonder I have not heard from her or seen her on yahoo. The amazing thing about this lady is she was the ultimate example of an Army wife and did so much to take care of her Soldier and the Soldiers within his unit. She loved putting together care packages, was a hopeless romantic and has been through hell these past four years. First, she lost her best friend to an IED in 2006 and now her husband has also fallen. I wonder how she is shouldering it all and caring for her young child.

This is the second wife I have known who has lost her husband to the War on Terror. I am grasping for understanding and with my own husband deployed, it makes me realize just how valuable every single moment spent with him is in the context of life. Let me tell you what it is like to be an Army wife and send your spouse off into a warzone. It can be devastating emotionally and hits every single army wife hard in one form or another. Most of us have learned how to handle it by sucking it up out in public and learning to smother our tears in the remnants of our husband's clothing. Our Soldier's essence is what we cling to in place of their absence.

One of the things which has frustrated me the most is how people react to the news that we have sent our loved ones off into battle. They treat us as if we are mourning a death and more often than not leave us alone to fend for ourselves. For most of us, that is the last thing we need. I feel like a failure for not having paid more attention to those around me and even more of a failure for not being more intentional with my friendships. My heart grieves for Jenny. I could have done so much more to invest in her life. Her husband's death is why I am going after my Master's Degree in Counseling. I want to make a difference, for everytime I close my eyes I see the faces of families all across the world impacted by the sacrifice they make for family and country and their pain drives me forward.

All Skyped Up

I have to tell you that Skype has become my new best friend since Ben deployed.  To no avail we have tried yahoo and msn to communicate via webcam, but Skype outshines them all!!!