This time my reaction was a bit different. I felt that I had to look online to find out what happened, to make this Marine a real person with a face and a name. So I turned to the Internet.

He was a 21-year-old Marine who was described as “selfless”, “made people laugh”, and “enjoyed life”. He had 300 days left in the Marine Corps.

I realize that searching for this information online will bring tears to my eyes, and make me sick to my stomach.  However, it allows me to pay my respects to the Marine and his family, and ensure they are not forgotten.

I was totally taken by surprise because I didn’t realize the Marine Corps would make announcements like this over the mass communication tool - the battalion’s way of disseminating information to the families.

Until the new family readiness process was put in place – which was about a year or so ago – we basically received information from “key volunteers” who were suppose to disseminate the information from the lead volunteer who communicated directly with the battalion command. It is possible that prior to the new family readiness program - which included the mass communication tool - the Marine Corps didn’t have a protocol for announcing this information besides to the immediately family.

Or it could be that we never had to deal with this news from past deployments. Either way, it puts a pit in my stomach and makes the deployment road seem very long and winding.

It made me quickly realize that the casualty and wounded numbers you read in media stories are more than just numbers. They are men and women who were counting down the days until deployment was over and making plans for their careers and families. These are real men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

We will never forget their sacrifice, especially one of our very own.

She makes coming home at night a little easier. And she always sleeps by my bed and makes me feel a little safer when our big man is gone. She helps the time go by with long walks and trips to the beach. And she never complains when we take long car rides to visit the fam.

I’m not sure how I would survive deployments without my trusty companion Miss Monty, our 5-year-old boxer.

Young who have served in foreign war twice as likely to report chronic pain as never-deployed

This article is the third in a special multipart series on the wellbeing of the American military. Part one covered active duty military and veteran wellbeing. Part two looked at wellbeing among deployed versus non-deployed.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Active duty U.S. military personnel who have been deployed to a foreign war are more likely to have been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives than those service members who have never deployed, with the largest percentage of diagnoses among those aged 18 to 29.

Among those 18- to 29-year-olds who’ve been deployed, 86% say they’ve served in either Iraq or Afghanistan, as have 80% of 30- to 64-year-olds. Still, the younger service members are far more likely than the older military personnel and more than twice as likely as their non-deployed counterparts to say they have ever been diagnosed with depression.

These findings are based on 1,432 interviews with active duty military personnel conducted Aug. 1, 2009 through June 15, 2010 as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Among these respondents, all of whom were living in the U.S. at the time, 1,004 reported having been previously deployed to a foreign war, 818 of which were deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan.

For more information on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, see page 2.

Daily Physical Pain Doubles for Young, Previously Deployed

Active duty military personnel who have been previously deployed are also more likely to report experiencing physical pain daily than those active duty service members who have never deployed. Again, the difference is more pronounced in the younger age group, with young military personnel who have returned from deployment showing a rate of chronic pain that is double the rate of their counterparts who have never deployed.

Even though they have experienced the difficulties of serving in a foreign war, previously deployed American military personnel under the age of 30 are still less likely to report ever having been diagnosed with depression than U.S. workers as a whole (9.6% vs. 11.9%). Much of this difference, however, can be accounted for as a result of the disproportionately high percentage of male service members when compared with U.S. workers generally, as women are about 70% more likely to be diagnosed with depression than are men.

Still, the findings suggest that deployment to war can take an emotional and physical toll, especially for those under 30 as active duty personnel return state-side hampered with daily physical pain and depression diagnoses that are sharply higher than their non-deployed counterparts.

Learn more about the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,432 currently active U.S. military personnel, including 1,004 that have been deployed to a foreign war and 428 that have never been deployed. (The deployment status of the remainder is unknown.) Interviews were conducted with those aged 18 and older from Aug. 1 2008-June 15, 2010, as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is +3.0, +3.7, and +5.6 percentage points, respectively. Error ranges will climb higher for individual age groups within each category.

Questions used to discern military involvement and deployment to foreign wars include:

“Have you, or has any member of your household, ever served in the U.S. military?

Are you currently on active duty, or not?”

“Which war or wars, if any, have you been deployed to?”

Questions used to discern the clinical diagnosis of depression and daily physical pain include:

“Have you ever been told by a physician or nurse that you have depression?”

“Did you experience physical pain a lot of the day yesterday?”

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones (for respondents with a landline telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell phone only and cell phone “mostly”).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

About the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index measures the daily pulse of U.S. wellbeing and provides best-in-class solutions for a healthier world. To learn more, please visit well-beingindex.com.

But I finally did it and I’m so happy I did. It has certainly made my job easier and less stressful taking care of the house. The last deployment I attempted to do it all… work full time, be a board of director for a non-profit, cook, clean, mow the lawn, trim the bushes, take care of the dog and train for a marathon. Since it was the first time my husband had been deployed while living in our home, it was a bit overwhelming.

I have this issue of asking for help that I’m trying to work on. I have family, friends and neighbors always telling me to let them know if I need anything, but I feel like I need to save my “help card” for something major like the hot water tank going. I don’t want to be the military wife that cries for help too often and then no one is there when you really need it.

For now, I’m thankful for my landscaper and glad my husband understands that things can get a bit overwhelming when he’s not home.

But don’t worry. We have 6 more long months of this. This time we face our 4^th deployment in a war zone and our 6^th deployment overall.

This deployment is very different from the last. He is in a remote area and doesn’t have access to the amenities he is use to like toilets, running water, television, a gym, hot food (unless you consider tray rations hot food) or a PX. In his words yesterday, “I crap in a bag, piss into a tube, don’t have running water to shower or shave with, but can get on Facebook almost anytime I want. War is Hell.”

The positive aspect of this is he does have Internet and access to a phone. So at least he can email and call from time to time. All we really want to know every day is that he is okay.

So here we go on the long winding path until he gets home again. I’m already day dreaming about the homecoming at three weeks in. God help me!

Flaming Amy’s Burrito Barn is on a mission to deliver jars of three of their top-selling salsas to troops overseas. The idea came to owners Amy and Jay Muxworthy in early April when Pvt. 1st class Justin Young, a soldier serving at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, made a joking comment on Flaming Amy’s Facebook page.

Jay told him he’d send enough to feed an army.

So the couple set about experimenting with different ways to ship the salsa. Dry ice didn’t work. And Jay didn’t like canning it.

Failure was not an option. The decision was made to professionally bottle three of their best flavors: Flaming Hot, Traditional Salsa and Pineapple Jalapeño.

“The whole thing has kind of snowballed into a grander scheme,” Amy said. “We’re going to do it as a full-on nonprofit to try to get as much over there as we can.”

The UPC bars are done. Jay meets with Bobbee’s Bottling in Louisburg this week to discuss details. Also this week, N.C. State’s Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences should be finished examining the recipes and have the nutritional and other label information ready. A tattoo artist friend of theirs, Axel Mercier, is working on the rest of the label, which should exude the Flaming Amy’s style local diners have become accustomed to.

Meanwhile, Jay and Amy have been meeting with a lawyer to create a nonprofit corporation for shipping and making the salsa.

“We’re trying to set it up modeled sort of like the Newman’s Own type of thing where it’s a total nonprofit corporation; it’ll be separate, somewhat from Flaming Amy’s,” he said. “Although it’ll be our salsas, it’ll be somewhat its own entity. All the money from the salsas will be rolled back into the company to make more salsa.”

The idea is that after the salsa is bottled, it will be sold at the restaurants and anyone in the country would be able to buy a bottle from a new website, which is under development. Each bottle sold for its retail price will pay for a bottle to be shipped overseas to the troops.

“I figured this was a good way not only to support the soldiers, but we’ve got a lot of people that want our salsas that no longer live in this area or visit the area in the summertime and this is a way that we can sell a shelf-stable version and start shipping it to them,” Jay said. “I think it’ll be a win-win for everyone.”

Originally, they had planned to just box the bottles and send them to the military units. But Amy found out that once the boxes reach the military post office overseas, it could sit for weeks before being distributed to the troops.

“That’s just not going to work,” she said.

Now, she’s trying to team up with other organizations that already send supplies overseas, such as the USO and other troop support groups, to expedite the process. If all goes according to the battle plan, the first jars of Flaming Amy’s salsa should be rolling out by late July/early August.

Those who would like to contribute to the program now can drop some cash in a jar at the register. When the nonprofit status is finished, donations will be tax deductible.

“You want to hear our mission objective? My husband wrote up a whole thing: To exploit any and all means necessary in order to get our salsa to the troops on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Amy said.

For more information about Operation Salsa Drop, type “Flaming Amy’s” into the search field on Facebook.com.

Read the original story here.

The questions reminded me that the general public is curious but ill-informed about a country and a conflict to which it still sent over 100,000 young American men and women. There are a number of reasons that have led to this. The administration has almost completely removed Iraq from the national agenda, and news reports about the war are fleeting and mostly lacking in important nuance and perspective. Add to this a still faltering world economy and a compelling legislative debate on Capitol Hill, and there seems to be few newspaper column inches left for Iraq.

This vacuum has left me and my fellow soldiers as unwitting ambassadors, explaining strategic policy and progress in Iraq to the American public. This role adds stress to the adjustments returning soldiers must make for successful reintegration into life back home. As we try to remake our lives after an extended absence, we are often asked to give our opinions and to recount our experiences in excruciating detail. And while our first-hand knowledge and perspectives constitute an important part of the narrative of this conflict, veterans should not be the primary voice speaking about Iraq. We are unable to speak fully about these issues, constrained by operational security –  an important safeguard for those still serving overseas. Our job as soldiers is to carry out the mission and bring our fellow soldiers home safely. It is the job of the government and the media to explain and justify the war to the American public.

The Department of Defense needs to allow more journalistic access to the war. During the surge and under the direction of Gen. Deavid H.  Petraeus, journalists were given nearly carte blanche that led to compelling and informative reporting. Recent  reports in Stars and Stripes indicate that the Pentagon has hired a public relations firm to screen carefully its embeds, thereby stifling their access. The Pentagon must recognize that the issues they chose to ignore at the cabinet level are left to be addressed by those of us at the company level.

The American media needs to revive its coverage of the conflict in a meaningful and consistent manner despite public weariness. Anthony Shadid’s articles for The New York Times are of a consistently high quality, but unfortunately this type of reporting is all too rare at this stage in the conflict. So long as service members remain in harm’s way, journalists need to remind the people of this fact.

The American public, too, needs to re-engage with one of the defining issues of the past decade. Iraq should retain a prominent place in the American collective conscience. With all the other challenges facing Americans today, Iraq need not be the singular American issue, but it needs to be among the important few. There are men, women, and families whose lives have been, quite literally, torn apart, and their sacrifices credit attention to the end.

The political and military situation in Iraq has improved greatly over the past two years. The story, however, is not over. More veterans will be returning from Iraq in the coming months. They need time to decompress, gain perspective, and talk about the day-to-day life they have missed while deployed. A consistent and meaningful treatment of the Iraq war by the government, media, and public will not only take pressure off returning soldiers but also honor their service. And for all the political clamor to do so, this may be one of the best ways to support the troops.

For the original story visit: http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/remembering-iraq/

However, after two tours in Iraq and getting ready to leave for his second tour in Afghanistan, the day has a total different meaning for me.  Having lost friends in both wars, my husband and I now know the true meaning of the day.

While we typically don’t attend the Memorial Day fan fare, mainly because it is too emotional, I always take a few minutes of the day to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice and to remember the families who continue to endure the hardship.

In memory of my husband’s friends, we will never forget their courage and dedication to our country:

Capt Phillip Dykeman, USMC

Capt John Maloney, USMC

1st Lt Joshua Palmer, USMC

SSG Kyle Wehrly, USA

Sgt Joshua Frazier, USMC

Cpl Carlos Gilorozco, USMC

Cpl Brett Lundstorm, USMC

SPC Daniel Sesker, USA

Cpl Joshua Synder, USMC

LCpl Kyle Brown, USMC

LCpl Joshua Scott, USMC

Here are a few ways to participate: observe the national moment of remembrance at 3 p.m. local time or fly an American flag half-staff from dawn until noon local time.

The History of Memorial Day

The following is from the History Channel web site.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day because it was a time set aside to honor the nation’s Civil War dead by decorating their graves. It was first widely observed on May 30, 1868, to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers, by proclamation of General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former sailors and soldiers. On May 5, 1868, Logan declared in General Order No. 11 that:

The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

During the first celebration of Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery.

This 1868 celebration was inspired by local observances of the day in several towns throughout America that had taken place in the three years since the Civil War. In fact, several Northern and Southern cities claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day, including Columbus, Miss.; Macon, Ga.; Richmond, Va.; Boalsburg, Pa.; and Carbondale, Ill.

In 1966, the federal government, under the direction of President Lyndon Johnson, declared Waterloo, N.Y., the official birthplace of Memorial Day. They chose Waterloo—which had first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—because the town had made Memorial Day an annual, community-wide event during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.

By the late 1800s, many communities across the country had begun to celebrate Memorial Day and, after World War I, observances also began to honor those who had died in all of America’s wars. In 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday to be celebrated the last Monday in May. (Veterans Day, a day set aside to honor all veterans, living and dead, is celebrated each year on November 11.)

Today, Memorial Day is celebrated at Arlington National Cemetery with a ceremony in which a small American flag is placed on each grave. Also, it is customary for the president or vice-president to give a speech honoring the contributions of the dead and lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. About 5,000 people attend the ceremony annually.

Several Southern states continue to set aside a special day for honoring the Confederate dead, which is usually called Confederate Memorial Day.

Recently, my husband left for training, which will be followed by a few weeks at home before they leave for Afghanistan. I couldn’t even think about writing a blog post because I didn’t want to consciously think about deployment.

Of course I think about it and worry, but no matter how much I think about it and worry, the time will come. And I will have no control over what happens when he leaves, how much we will talk, and the unexpected things that will go wrong with the house or car. So I do my best to force myself to stop counting the days, stop counting the hours and stop counting the minutes and just enjoy as much time together as possible.