A Lady

Most people don't know that on base there are many foreign non-military workers. These people are hired to do a number of duties around post: clean bathrooms, cook, work as food vendors, take out the trash, etc. They don't make very much money, and so the military scoops them up to work for us. For example, a cook in the DFAC (dining facility) makes approx. $150 per month. I can only imagine how much the men who drive around emptying and cleaning the porta potties around post make.
As a soldier I see hundreds of these people everyday and I have become accustomed to 'not seeing them', if you will. It is almost as if they don't exist to us. We don't speak the same language, have the same customs, or even the same body language. They are there to work, and so are we. We go about our lives living together but never meshing, except for a few instances when I remember that they are human beings and they have the same human tendencies that we all do. Tonight, I saw a lady in the bathroom. She was getting ready to clean. I'm not sure where she was from, she had a beautiful dark blue dress decorated in lighter blue print on with a matching head scarf. She had a gold stud in her nose and she was brown. I don't know if she was from Kuwait or a different country only here to work. She had a nice smile. As I was getting ready to wash my face, she walked over to the sink with what looked like a container and looked over at me with a big smile and said something to me that I didn't understand. I just looked at her, with an expression that conveyed obvious confusion. She said again, and again, until I understood....she was trying to tell me how great it was to turn on the water and have it be hot. 'Hot, hot, water, hot' and a smile. What a great moment. I am amazed how much we take for granted. Praise God for that small moment that let me appreciate every miraculous detail of my life.

Christmas in the Desert.

Most of the people reading this are sitting at home on a lovely Sunday afternoon sipping some sort of calming beverage while enjoying the day. Maybe it's even snowing. Or at least that's the happy picture I paint myself as I get ready to go to sleep out here in the desert. I miss my family so bad right now. It occurred to me today that this is the first Christmas season that I have not been at home. Like, home-home, with my family. It also occurred to me that home is the only place I want to be right now and I cannot be there. It's so frustrating to me.
So instead, I focus on the memories. Last year me and my sister went to target and bought footie pajamas and had mom-mom drive us to the mall to take pictures with Santa. We also made a generous amount of Oreo truffles that we insisted on calling Oreo balls, and then decorated the tree's outside with big colorful over sized mirror balls in addition to putting out the broken lighted up deer. Those poor deer kept falling down all Christmas! We drove around the neighborhood looking at all the decorated houses and then at some point....or many different points we always watch Elf. It's almost a tradition. My brother and I took off to the park last year and went sledding, then mom-mom went and bought us a cool snow board....that I don't think I ever got on :( Maybe next year. On the sledding trip...for some reason...we decided to take all three dogs. Bad idea!! :) We ended up taking them back. I also remember a cookie baking incident where we named a cookie and proceeded to write the name, in icing, on the cookie sheet BEFORE we put him in the oven. I'm pretty sure the name is burnt onto the cookie sheet to this day. Oops! :) Last year was also the year that John and Cindy got their first cell phones and sent out their first text messages!! How exciting!!
Basic idea for the night is: I want to go home. I sense that this is a bad feeling to have, being as I have only been here two weeks now.
More on this later. I have to be at the motor pool by 0700 to get our trucks ready. Yippee! (and it is almost 11 pm here.)
Goodnight! I miss you all, I can guarantee you that!

Just an update.

I thought I should write a little, but it won't be as good. Just a little update for all y'all because I had such a good day. I felt motivated the past few days. I have been moved in for almost a week, I have gotten my bunk set up (for the most part) and feel somewhat settled. I don't really, but I know that I am out of transition mode for at least 10 months. Which, after moving around to a different home each month, feels pretty darn good. This place is different. I don't like it. I would honestly rather be up north in Iraq...but it is what it is. *famous military saying.
Today was an amazing day. It was my first day 'off' in a long while. Now, let me tell you about my 'day off.' Sigh....I am getting upset just thinking about it:
I'm going to shorten it up because it is 0000 here and I have a 5K run in 6 hours.
It is Sunday...well now technically monday...but roll with me here. We had a company wide weigh in (in which I was 5 lbs overweight! augh!) and then the whole company had the day off. First Sergeant said the next formation was 0800 Monday morning. Sweet!! Well, then our LT decided that he wanted all of 1st platoon trucks in numerical order....today. It couldn't wait one day until we had really nothing to do. We were all pissed.
Well, he told us this last night after formation..so me, being the little miss future LT that I am went down the line and wrote down a map of our truck line (how many trucks, and what order they were in) so as to set up an order of march for the next day to limit the amount of time we would be in the motor pool. I took said map and put each in numerical order on a new sheet as a future map. Found out which trucks were hooked up to the wrong trailers and how we should unhook them and hook them up to the right ones. Which trucks we were missing for maintenance, or other such reasons.....and came out with a pretty slick looking set up for the next day. I stayed up late doing so. We ended up starting to move the trucks at 1030 and finished by 1230 (I honestly think I shortened the chaos by 1/2 just by putting forth a little extra time and effort). In addition, I was running around telling people what to do....which felt pretty good because no one else was taking charge. I felt like I made a good impression of my leadership skills and showed that I am not afraid to work and get dirty. I was literally running:
Clare's Papa taught me while working on the farm....never walk when you can run and get something done faster. I feel like I earned respect from a lot of the guys out there today, and maybe I even impressed my Platoon Sergeant. Who knows. But we were done early, went to lunch and had the rest of the day off with the whole remainder of the company. I took a shower after chow and rested for a bit, then my friends invited me to go to zone 1 with them to hang out. We ended up spending the whole day there shopping at the little hadji vendors they have there and watching a movie at the MWR (morale, welfare, recreation) building and playing spades with this random guy at 'oldies' night. It was a pretty good day.

Oh, and I lost my sunglasses and then found them! They're like 200 something dollar pair of perscription oakley's....I was so upset, and then so happy in a period of like 10 minutes when I realized they were lost ;-) i'm so ADD sometimes!!


I am really missing Christmas this year, I realized it when I was in the PX (Post eXchange, like walmart) and they were playing Christmas music. I went ahead and bought a green garland with fake snow on it to decorate the B's (barracks or billets).
I love you all and can't wait to come home!!
Write me! :)

SPC KEEHNER, TARA A
778 Trans HET Co, 1ST Platoon
APO, AE 09366

Lay over...

I am writing this at 0805 on Tuesday November 30^th (1605 in Baghdad). We have been in the air for hours and hours, have crossed the _____ ocean, eaten bad airplane food and have gotten horrible rest. My neck is stiff and hurting, my feet are swollen and I am tired. I honestly can’t wait until we land. We had a layover in Germany which was interesting to say the least. We landed around 0445 Indiana time and 1045 Germany time. I have no idea how long we were there, I would estimate an hour or so. When we arrived it was 22 F and snow covered the ground. We got off the plane and loaded these busses that took us to our ‘holding area.’ This consisted of a bunch of chairs, an eating area, computers with overpriced internet access, and a small gift shop full of over priced items complete with a German speaking employee. I took in my carry on bag and immediately went to the restroom to brush my teeth, wash my face, and reapply deodorant. Feeling fresh, I headed out to look around. I spent way too much money on gifts to send home to a few people…but I think they will enjoy them. After walking around the small condensed area full of soldiers headed all over the world, it was time to go. We, once again, boarded the plane and continued on our voyage to our final destination. I am now sitting on the plane watching Iron Man II after eating a delicious German made airplane meal. (it really was good) We are expected to land in the next few hours (whatever that means…) and we should start inprocessing. The good news is, since we will arrive before midnight on the 30^th of November, we will get all of our taxes back for that month! J Yippee!!

Again…I will post this as soon as I get internet access that doesn’t cost a gagillion dollars.

Take off…

So, my journey has begun. Officially. I can’t tell you how I expected my last day, at our MOB station. I thought—I’m going to call everyone and say a last goodbye. I’m going to text every contact in my phone and tell everyone how much I will miss them while I’m gone (and remind them to send me packages!) I’m going to be strong, and ready. I mean….we’ve been in training for the past two months. I should be ready, right?

Whew, I mean with the way my life has gone you would think that I know ALL about how differently things that are planned out in your head are from reality.

Reality left me in a place deep, deep inside trying to figure out what I wanted out of this deployment. I keep telling myself that I am going to grow on this deployment. Physically, mentally, emotionally, educationally, etc. I want to become a better person. I don’t want to focus, really, on anyone but myself. But the reality of things is that I am constantly surrounded by people. I have spent the past 2 months stateside finding a balance between realizing my goals and reality. I can’t tell you that I have found that balance, but I am working on it. My four day pass at home gave me some guidance and wisdom from my ‘family’ members. It left me with confidence that I am indeed a smart woman who has achieved much. (see last post) With all the things I have accomplished, I can conquer the world if I choose to. My worst downfall is my attitude :-/ oops.

It is hard for me to watch stupidity and go on about my day. I am getting better at realizing what is important and not. Whether something will directly effect me or not. And if it indeed does not affect me, then I have no business trying to rectify the situation.

Back to today. (29NOV and who knows when this will get posted as I have no idea when I will be able to get back online, so I am writing this on Word to transfer later) We had an early-ish formation, went about cleaning the barracks, and packing our last duffel bag to load onto the plane. My two most trusted friends and I went to Subway to have one last breakfast together in Indiana, then back to the barracks to sit around and wait. Pointless formations and standing around left us with plenty of time to carry out my plans of talking to my loved ones and texting to my little heart’s content. Instead, I just wasn’t in the mood to talk. I was enjoying the company of my friends’ from the other platoons. (yes, the people who I will be around for the next year…I don’t get it either, but it’s the past so…it happened) I did talk to my mom and texted my best friend all day in short increments. It just wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t feel like talking for some reason. Then at around 1600 when the busses pulled around the corner and the volunteers from the USO started to line the street we were going to leave on…I started a little anxiety attack. I mean, we really are leaving. This isn’t fake anymore. We aren’t just training. We are going overseas. Wow. Deep breath. Okay. I can do this.

It became a whole new animal. The realization should have hit me way before, but for some reason it didn’t. The little old ladies walked around handing us crosses, and little wooden nickels that we can trade in for beer when we get back, while giving us hugs telling us “ We’ll see you when you get home” This was such a nice gesture and all I could think about was ‘psch…this is NOT my home. I don’t know who lied to you’

So, away we went. We boarded the busses and waved to the 8-10 volunteers lined up on the street waving American flags thoughts racing in our minds. And you know what I thought about? Spain. For some reason all I could think about was my unsure trip to Spain that I want to take during my 2 week R&R. As we arrived at the international airport, I made sure to charge my phone and text/call as much as possible, but at this point there was not much time left. Next think I knew we were in line to board the plane about an hour earlier than scheduled and I was on the phone with my mom trying to get out a proper goodbye. What is that? How does one execute a proper goodbye?? Is there a class I should have taken to learn this skill?? I will never know. As I did say goodbye, I informed her that I have no idea when I will be able to talk to her again. I know that it will happen, but I suspect that it will be about a week until I will have the means to contact her.

Thankfully I am sitting by my two battle buddies & we are having a ‘good time’ ;-) ….or as good of a time as you can have on a 20+ hour flight to a foreign country we are at war with. We are stopping in Germany, and are only on our first leg of the trip. Right now it is 2345 and I am finding it almost impossible to sleep for some reason. But, I’ll make it! The flight attendants are playing movie after movie, Inception, Sherlock Holmes while serving below par chicken and beef warmed up in a microwave….they’re trying. Between movies they show our time, the time it is where we will land, our flight speed and temperature outside. It’s about 5:45am in Germany, we are going about 1045 mph and it is about -65 F outside the plane right now.

I’m going to make it. I can do this. Just pray for me. Send me letters. Send me packages. Get on Skykpe and talk to me sometime. Pray that I keep my goals in my heart and that I don’t forget them for any stupid reason, like losing patience. Pray that I keep my patience.

I'm just sad.

Disclaimer: I am, indeed, emotional.

Big hot tears roll down my face as I drive away from my "family's" house headed back to Camp Atterbury, Indiana after a too short four day pass at home for Thanksgiving. It was a good day. A hard day, but still a good day. If my emotions could be personified, riding a roller coaster--they would be sick to the point of vomiting.
Rewind to this morning:
:-) I woke up happy in my own very warm bed, ate a delicious breakfast of grits and yogurt with Michigan blueberries handpicked by family friends, took a shower and proceeded to get back into ARMY mode.
:-( Army socks, boots, pants, shirt, jacket.....and....I'm a soldier again. This time for a long time. :-) Mom and I ran some errands, did some last minute packing and headed over to Grammy's house to say goodbye's there.
:-( Gram didn't take it too well, but it helped that Aunt Ginger and Uncle Bob were there with Harmony to help soften the hurt. Even if I was gone, she still had them there at least until tomorrow. So a sad goodbye for them, but not so much for me.
:-) It was sad....but I was also excited to go see my 'other' family :-) in Forsyth. Away we went!!

Let me pause this roller coaster ride to say how grateful I am to ALL of my family, related and unrelated, immediate and extended, friends who are family, and family who are friends. I am thankful for each and every one of you. We had a discussion after a delicious thanksgiving meal with a second cousin about how our 'family' has spread to the winds and we don't have the kinds of communication needed to keep that family bond together. It's no one's fault per se, but it is just fact. And the fact of the matter is, besides the Thanksgiving meal and an occasional Christmas gathering at someone's house....we are strangers to each other. My cousins don't know anything about me, nor do my aunts and uncles. The information they do know about me, they must find out from someone other than myself because I never talk to them. We don't talk on the phone, write letters, email, text, or even Facebook. All of these avenues of communication are open, and I have set up different trips throughout the years to visit different members of my family who I would like to be closer to and these trips have deepened the original bond of family.
No matter what, we share some DNA and in some cases the same name.

But this is not what I need. I am the only child of a single mother. Smart, athlete, outgoing, dedicated and focused on success. I have no father to speak of, which eliminates half of my blood related family right there. Imagine it as a lightening striking dead half of my tree. Therefore, I am already short changed on the family tree. Add in the fact that there is no communication. No water going to the branches of my remaining scrawny family tree, I am not left with very much to go off of. I have some roots, my grandmother and mother, myself as the trunk, and a couple of branches (selected aunts and uncles, one or two cousins) and a few leaves (young babies of said cousins) So, please don't blame me if I prefer to pick up my roots, grow wings, and find happiness elsewhere. In a perfect world in my situation, extended family would have picked up the slack and we would have been a tight family unit. But, that is hard to do when we span the entire United States. No one's fault...just not what I need.

God has blessed me. I have been given a loving, caring home where I fit in and belong. When I look back at my life and think of all the good memories, I realize that I have had a family all along. There has been hurt and pain. Love and Joy. Sadness and suffering. We have fallen apart and come back together. I love them. They love me.
I am so proud of my little sister. She is one of the smartest, talented, most ambitious people I know and I can't wait to see what kind of beautiful woman she will become. I love that we're so close, I only wish that we were closer.
My little brother and I are closer than I even think I know. He has almost every baseball player, team and stat memorized. He is amazing at putting together, in weeks, a 3,000 piece Lego set that is supposed to take months. And he is one of the strongest people I know. He is constantly amazing me with his patience and good spirit in bad times. Life wouldn't be the same without him. I love him to death, even though he'd be mad at me for saying it publicly....I know he loves me back! :)
Mom-mom, perfect title since she is my second mom. My own mother is wonderful, and I am grateful for her and everything that she has, and continues to do for me--but even she is grateful that I have a grounded family atmosphere to partake in and this is what mom-mom provides for us all. She is THE most amazing, strong, structured, intelligent, fun, happy go lucky person I have ever met in my life and she is solely responsible for this Cinderella story. If it wasn't for her introducing herself to my mother, and my mother offering my babysitting services...I wouldn't be typing this today. I want to be just like her someday.
The Orr/Thompson family has welcomed me into their lives with open arms since 1999 and has never let me go. It is because of this that I feel so loved when I go home. I love to see Grama and Grampa, see what kinds of sewing or wood or redecorating or technology projects are going on around the house (or condo, if we happen to meet up in Colorado) and honestly I could go on and on about how happy I am. The real point to all this writing is to get out my emotions for myself, the bi-product being an insight to my mind. I feel like I have written enough this evening to get out enough emotion in order to sleep well.






I am not sad anymore. As cheesy as it sounds I am now full of memories and love as I swaddle myself in "Dad's" company sweatshirt as a security blanket.
Two days and a wake up, and I will be on a plane to a whole new world.

I am home.

racing thoughts, racing thoughts....
I have been home, the place where I was raised, for a little more than 24 hours now.
We started the drive home as soon as I was released around 1200, after a quick break for lunch at Crackel Barrel we continued on. I called ahead to inform my 'family' that we should have dinner as I passed through and I was informed that because of health complications this would not be possible, but a few of us could still go out for something.

Here I am. Sitting here typing. Trying to be completely vague, but I don't want to. I want to say how frustrating this whole situation is. I don't want to go, I don't have enough time with the people I love. And, even worse, because of some stupid illness that decided to invade the life of the people who I've chosen to be my family-I can barely see them at all. It isn't fair, really. I see myself sitting upstairs on the couch talking to mom-mom who is sitting in the brown chair about life. About how much I don't think I can do this. About being surrounded by people who seem slow, and how to deal with it. About feeling alone, but being surrounded by people. And you know what? She tells me, somehow in her own words, that everything is going to be okay. And I believe her. Because she has never lied to me. I love her, and I am scared to death to be away. My sister needs me more than ever, and soon enough I won't even be able to text her every once in awhile...how am I supposed to make sure that everything is okay if I am approx. 7,000 miles away??

I once said that I don't write at night because there are too many uncontrollable emotions...but isn't that what writing is??? Emotions..flowing, streaming, bursting through the floodgates of your mind down your arms into your fingertips and onto the keyboard to print into black and white what is going on in the sea of thoughts and ideas you call your brain.

Well, tonight and all day, as well as yesterday---all I can think about is that the point of this four day pass was to spend time with family. I will, indeed, spend time with extended family. But my mom-mom, my sister, my brother, I might get to see them on Friday morning before I leave to go back. I can't see them because I don't want to risk getting the woman who already has an extremely low white blood cell count and an infection more sick. Its a conundrum, really.
I was told in my childhood that God never gives us more than we cannot handle. I believe that with all my heart and soul, and when He gives me lemons, I make sweet lemonade. But, I also believe in 'living in it'

It is important not to just brush every emotion or feeling to the side and slap a smile on your face. It is important to 'embrace the suck' while it is happening. Hold close to you things that make you hurt, cry, lonely...so that later on in life, you can recognize these feelings and know better how to deal with them. If you are sad, be sad--cry, use up a whole box of kleenex, talk to someone, stay silent, scream if it makes you feel better. Whatever it takes, live it. Then let it go. If you are angry or upset, try to watch what you say to others..but be mad, punch a pillow, throw the son of a bitch across the room, who cares? Live it, then quickly let it go. The key is, letting it go. If you don't let it go, it will embrace you. However, the same goes for happiness and love. The only difference is to not let these go. If you are happy, or feel love...hold on for dear life because you never know when anger, or fear, or sadness will try to come grab onto you again. But when it does, you will know what each one feels like and will know how to handle it.

So, as I type, I feel it. I feel the sadness, the feeling of unfairness, the disappointment that things aren't the way I planned in my head. But I have felt these things before and have been happy since then. And so I know that, even today, I have been happy. I have felt joy. I know that when I leave, I will have a mix of bitter sadness and excitement with anticipation. I will embrace it, just like every other time. And, of course, I will write.

The calm before the storm..

...sand storm, that is!

Well hello everyone!! Most everyone reading this, I will see in the next week whether you know it or not :) And I couldn't be more excited!

There has been quite the lull in my posts for multiple reasons. The most debilitating was the crashing of my hard drive. I was SO upset!! I think it fell off a foot locker (box at the end of a bed about a foot high, most resembling a chest) and it messed it up. BIG TIME. I was running a bunch of programs and they started running real slow, so I restarted the computer only to have it reboot to a gray screen with a flashing question mark. No good. So I called Apple to report the issue and see what my options were....after talking to them for hours on the phone and crying to one poor customer service guy about how I had less than two weeks to get this issue fixed and I was leaving the country and how my computer was my main source of communicating with my family...I was advised to call the company who installed my new hard drive this past July. I did, and they said that it would be no problem and that the repair was most likely covered under warranty! This coupled with the check I would receive from Apple for the hard drive failing left me coming out on top!! My computer was gone for 5 days and I got it back the day before we left for the field for 5 days and there was no way that I was going to take my newly repaired computer out to the field! So, another 5 days of no means to post...

Now, I am sitting in my rack--eyeballs hurting because I'm so tired--but also so excited. My mom is sitting in a hotel less than an hour away only waiting for the sun to come out to come get me and take me home!! Oh, home!! It brings a tear to my eye. I miss home. This whole experience the past two months has made me appreciate everything that I have had the past 23 years, and I just want it back.
Tonight, the girls from 1st platoon celebrated our 'thanksgiving' together with pizza and coke :) we played spades and shared about each other. It was a really great time and I honestly enjoyed myself. I talked with my bunk mate tonight after everyone left our 'house' (see photo) about how our platoon has the most bonded females out of everyone. If you haven't lived with 50 females with NO personal space, please do not even try to understand. Everyone has something to say ALL the time. There are some people who I really can not comprehend how they can have that much negativity before breakfast! It's like they wake up angry at the world. But, tonight, we really bonded and it was good for us. I finally shared with the other girls (my battle, White, has already been knowing) about Clare and my story, which I think completely shocked them, and we all really had a good time hanging out.
Tomorrow by this time I will be in MY bed!

I would write more, but I am too anxious to even talk about feelings. That will have to come another day!! :)

ps one week from tomorrow I'll be on a plane to the Middle East.

Aw, here we go!

First of all, let me share that I have been raised to be a strong, independent woman by my mother. She has taught me to never let people walk over me, and that I can do whatever I put my mind to. These characteristics I have adopted have led me to where I am today. I am here at my mobilization training. We have been here for four full days and already stresses are high. Mostly because of all the lack of communication and confusion in relation to our training and what we are doing here. We have received new gear, painful shots, tons of paperwork and WAY better food than in Salina ;) it's always about the food. Most of our time is spent at this appointment or that one, listening to this brief or getting this box checked off for these people whose job it is to get us out of the country.
The other night, I was finally given an opportunity to do some physical training (PT) by way of playing 5 games of basketball. Boy, was I tired! ----but it felt SO good to get some stress out on the court, let me tell you!! I have so many little stories to tell; like the one where we were walking to the gym in the dark and a drunk soldier in civilian clothes came up to us (it was one of his last nights before heading off to Iraq) with his sober buddies to talk to us. Or how there is a minimal security prison/jail on post that we have to walk past everyday in order to get to the chow hall and how I walked past today semi alone (my pals were up ahead of my about 20 feet) and one of the males bee lined to me at the fence and yelled out 'Hey girl! Why are you all by yourself?' and I just yelled out 'MOFFETT!!!!!!' real loud (Moffett is the name of one of the guys who was walking ahead of me) to let the guy know that I was NOT by myself. Haha! Or how some of these females need to leave me alone or I'm going to snap!
Like I said, stresses are high--and sleep is short lived, so I'm going to hit the rack for the night. I just thought it was time for a more regular update.

I miss all of you, and dream of home daily.

Title 10

Things are coming to a close. I am officially an active duty soldier as of today. I report tomorrow evening and will begin my journey to our mobilization site. As I sit here, contemplating my life, I wonder about how I got here. Nothing in my recent, or even distant past hints to this change of events that has me on my way to a deployment in a little over a month. High school was rough, as it is for every teenager--but it was still an amazing experience. I was all-academic, swim team captain, varsity letter all four years. I was in honors courses and participated in a plethora of extra curricular activities including but not limited to science club, flag squad, and choir. I graduated with National Honor Society GPA and went off to find myself at college..instead I found friends, all nighters, and a boy named Casey.
I thought my life was complete. I transferred to the University of Kansas where I was going to finish my degree as Casey finished his--we were going to get married and start a wonderful life together, until we ended up pregnant.
One surprise event and a year can change so much....
A year later, I was single, without child, and enlisting in the Army National Guard. It is amazing how life can change in one year. I was on a path, a planned, chosen path. I loved my path, I walked my path with joy and happiness--but all of a sudden in on year--my path took an unexpected turn. The environment around me on the path turned cold, there was snow and ice. I had been dressed for summer and the beach--I wasn't prepared for this unexpected change. People ask me about my life during the time when the path turned and I honestly can't speak on it very well. I don't even know what happened myself. All I know is that I was headed off to the Army. I am just now thawing from the flash winter that I experienced.
Just in time.
I have learned to embrace whatever comes my way. Live moment by moment, because I never know when something--some unexpected event is going to change my life forever. So, I live it. Every smile. Every tear. Every upset stomach and anxiety attack. Every laugh. Every embarrassment. I live it.

Transitions

Tomorrow I will go through yet another transition. We have to drive to Salina and report at 1800 (transitioning into military time), then will move into the barracks (transitioning into military living quarters), will have a formation (transitioning to the military way of life), wake up at 0400 (transitioning into the military time schedule), and eat chow (transitioning into the wonderful military food).

So, I have been here for 4 days now. It is awful. I will have to go into more detail later. We all got about 3 hours of sleep last night and I took a shower tonight for the first time in a couple days...no time to sleep...no time to shower. After feeling like I'm in the army of communist Russia, I'm going to bed 'early' We have formation at 0530....

sigh.

Family cont..

We had a family reunion of sorts this weekend for the Keehner family. I participated by eating delicious food two nights in a row and doing the normal chatting about how the year has gone by. And then...it was done. Goodbye's were easy, the feeling was strange. I don't really know these people. I didn't grow up knowing them, and we don't keep in contact except for seeing each other once a year. Essentially most of these people are strangers to me. This makes for an awkward experience, which in comparing it to my last week's experience left me feeling lonely. It's not that these blood relatives don't care about me, because they love me very much so. There is just no communication or effort put forth into keeping in touch or learning about each other and so I was left with this feeling...I just wanted to be with my family...
Again, emphasising the point that family is what you make it.


There are a select few people who I can see myself in, people I look up to and strive to be like. Anita, Nancy and Bev are such sweet women. Anita is most like me, hard worker, loving and she sincerely cares about people--but gets the jobs done that need to be done. The family is dying. With my mother's generation our wonderful lineage will be gone. My mother's siblings decided to move all over the country, leaving no central 'home' to come back to. The importance of FAMILY was not drilled into my generation. I have cousins who I know little to nothing about.

Just bits and pieces of information here and there. No relationship to speak of, and this makes me sad. When my mother's generation dies, I hardly believe that we will keep in touch--we haven't up until this point. And so, with no brothers or sisters. No concrete relationships with my cousins. No extended family and no father. I will be a lone Keehner, until I get married and the strong family name that I was given will die.

I think about these thoughts about once a year, and then they leave me. There is no way that I can change us, bringing me to be doubly, triply, quadruply thankful for the other family that I was blessed with. (see previous post)

One week. One week left at my mother's house. Packing is in full force and feelings of stress, anxiety and anticipation flood my brain all hours of the day and night making it harder and harder to sleep. Do I have everything I need? Is it packed correctly? What kinds of personal items will I need to pack? Do I have all of my affairs in order? Oh, and I need to print off those forms to turn into the commander. Okay, so I'll need to leave Friday morning in order to get to Kansas City in time to get my other gear out of my locker and go to the bank. Hmm...do I want to stay the night in Kansas City and say goodbye to people? Or should I go to Lawrence to see some people there....Oh, and I forgot about my laundry. Shoot, I need to switch it.....

deep breath.

The stress will dissipate. It has to. Or my ability to cope has to increase dramatically!! Things will work out. Or they won't. Either way I will survive and will come out on the other end. Until then, I will continue to vent on here.

Have a wonderful 9/11.
Remember the fallen hero's.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Arlington Cemetery
Visit to see Allison
May 2010

Family

I was going to write this down yesterday, but it had gotten too late--I didn't want to start getting all emotional.

Yesterday was a great day. I woke up early after a good party at Vincent's parent's house. Vincent was one of my best friends in high school. He entered the active duty air force in March and this was his first time home since then. Another friend of ours, Chris, was home on a 4 day pass before he heads off to Afghanistan and I am, of course, getting ready to leave for Iraq. It was a good night of reminiscing, military talk, and fun.

I awoke at 0700 unable to fall back asleep, so I drove to my mom's house to get my backpack and eat something for breakfast and headed to my 'happy place' in Forsyth. When I got here, everyone was still asleep--I mean, duh it's a Saturday! I got my brother to answer the phone and let me in, and I went and crawled into bed with my sister. We talked for a little while, she was still pretty groggy, and went upstairs to cuddle with our mom mom. We all took showers and headed over to Grandma Sharron's & Grandpa Herb's to set up for my going away party. We got there and even on the drive over, I was thinking about my life. The different coincidences in life that led me to where I am today amaze me.

I am incredibly blessed to be accepted and welcomed into a family that is not my own. In the car on the way over, we were talking about random things--but the way we were all talking, felt normal. Nothing was forced, I felt like I belonged. I always do, but yesterday--for some reason--was special. I'm probably being way too sentimental, but who cares. We got there and started working together to set up the house. 4th of July decorations littered the front entryway, deck, and main part of the house. Ribs were boiling in Budweiser and college football was on tv. We took down spiderwebs, swept, and set out chairs, tables, and tableware. All work, but it didn't even seem like it. The thought that all of this was getting set up for me. Just me. A whole family gathered together to bid me adieu on my way to war. The fact that they care, that they want to do this for me--brought tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart.

Time and time again, I am shown that a family is not how much blood you share, but how much love you share. I have been apart of this family for 12 years now, which totally amazes me. I realize that it is a strange relationship, but it isn't weird for us.

I'll leave you with a few quotes:

Families are like fudge... mostly sweet with a few nuts.
--unknown

Families are the compass that guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.
-- Brad Henry

Family is just accident.... They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.
-- Marsha Norman

I think people that have a brother or sister don't realize how lucky they are. Sure, they fight a lot, but to know that there's always somebody there, somebody that's family.
-- Trey Parker

The family you come from isn't as important as the family you're going to have.
-- Ring Lardner

Packing.

My girls: Allison, Stacey, Jenna, and me. Old college friends!


Oh how I hate that word...packing. Augh, it even has a gross sound to it. Say it outloud. 'Packing' gross. See?
Anyways, I spent my last weekend in Kansas City and it was a memorable one--for sure. My old college friend Stacey is entering the convent Sept. 8 (Mary's birthday) and there was a going away party for her...meaning that all such college roomates and friends came to that event. Including my best friend Allison!! So, I got to spend some much needed and unexpected time with them.
It was also Adam's birthday party so I got to go see Clare et all for possibly one last time. This lovely event was only spoiled by the fact that the 'ex' and new girlfriend were present. Gross. I wasn't even effected nor did I look at or exchange words with said couple. I felt empowered! lol anywho....I guess it effected me more than I thought because afterwards I had a small breakdown where I collected myself and moved on for the day. Sigh..such is life, right?
I went out salsa dancing at Casa Grande with Allison for one last time and the night was magnificient! :) It couldn't have been better...
Sunday morning we went to noon mass and Madeleine Rose Leis' baptism, where the event was somewhat spoiled by the presence of the unmentionables. lol :) I had a good cry and was surrounded by my friends. Holy crap how much I miss college when you're friends were down the hall!!



The drive home was uneventful with my mother, but we enjoyed good conversation and as always good music. When I drove in, I dropped my stuff off and headed over to the old best friend's parents house to welcome him home for a week of leave from the Air Force. Vincent & I have been pretty good friends since high school. He's like a brother to me. Anyway, we had a bonfire, drank beer and talked about the old days.

Now, I'm settling in, only to know that it won't last much longer. I have a week here with my mom, a couple days with my other family and another week or so with my mom split up by a trip to Texas :) Packing is the primary agenda & I hate it. Packing. Not for a weekend, or a couple of weeks, or a semester away at college. Packing for a year. Where I have no idea what to expect.
Lovely.
This sucks.

Obama says the war in Iraq is over? We'll see about that when I get there..



Allison and I before going out Salsa dancing!

Impulsive Writing

Sometimes people are drawn to do things. When some people are upset, they do the thing that makes them feel the best. For my adoptive mom-its a bath & book, for my sister-it's a hot shower, for others it's a quick run, for me...I don't know. I love to swim, but that is highly impractical as a pool is hard to come by impulsively. I love to read, but when you are distracted by a bothersome thought/idea--it is hard to focus on another story. So...writing it is. It is raw, it is honest. I write in my head constantly. I write things to say to people, true thoughts, pure thoughts--and usually never say them. So, now I write.

I was just in the shower, and as I sit here with a towel wrapped around my body--the water still dripping off my legs onto the floor....i write.

I write about the date. Today is the first day of August. This usually means the beginning of all things exciting. A new school? a new roommate? new teachers? new subjects? new classmates? new school supplies? Who knows! The possibilities are endless!! For me, the commencement of August means some sadness. The end is drawing near for time with my family. I keep thinking about it..but it is so true!

I write about family.
I write about the army.
I write about all things green.
I write about things in the news.

Who knows what I will write about. I am getting sleepy and I shy away from depressing night time posts :) So, now I stop typing--but never writing. I am constantly writing in my head.
Soon, I will begin my final SRP to get ready for deployment and I will also take off on a mission. I will write about both and possibly put in some pictures! :)

A Time For Change

I meant to write on Saturday, but you know how it is...now it's Monday and I have got to keep this short. My mother came to pick me up from the airport on Thursday and we went to pack up all of my remaining belongings to drive back to Illinois. If you would like to keep count, this is 10 hours total on the road for my mom Thursday/Friday. On Saturday we got a huge chunk of work done on packing my room and had 4 plastic totes full of things to take to Goodwill. Saturday night was my 5 year class reunion...augh.

I started out excited for this class reunion. Yeah! It'll be great to see all of my old friends, and catch up with their lives! Only, about 7 minutes before it was going to 'start' I was having dinner with my Mom & Grammy and I realized that--this is really going to suck! So I went with the intention of staying an hour, and then was going to go to run. About 40 minutes into the damn thing it started to rain. No, POUR! It was raining harder than I've seen in a long time. There was no way I was going to go out to my car, so I texted mom that I was going to stay until the rain passed. Finally the rain stopped, but I was too busy finding out about people's enthralling lives to go home. It was a depressing night--people were still the same old 'fake' that they had been...only some of the guys were really nice, and easy to talk to. Okay..so there were just a few bitchy females here and there, but it was SO annoying! I just wanted to scream at everybody to get a life!! :) Naw, I'd never do something like that! So, I ended up going home around 11:30, thoroughly satisfied with the evening.

Yesterday, my mom and I made the trek back to Kansas and back again today (chalk up 10 more hours for mom on the road for me...that's 20 total in the period of 5 days~! What an angel!) to get the remaining belongings, go to a Dr appointment, and see Clare--maybe for one last time before I leave on this deployment.

Also, today was the funeral of a local hero from my town SSG Matthew Weichart was buried today in Jacksonville Illinois and guess what rumor I heard about from the deli lady at Walmart tonight?! The ass from Topeka who protests funerals decided to show his ugly face. All of the town lined Morton St. in honor of him, and two fire trucks fully extended their buckets and dropped the American flag over the road...from what I hear, it was an amazing sight to see. Pictures will be in the paper tomorrow. The other rumor I heard was that some Jacksonville people gave the 'preacher man' quite a tongue lashing. I hope there's a story about that in the paper!!

R.I.P, Soldier--you served your country well.

The problem with time...eventually, time runs out.

I am sitting here looking at the calender that I had made that shows me how much free time I have left to spend so that I can more easily budget it. That time is slowly running out. No, not slowly at all. Its racing. I can't slow it down no matter how hard I try. There will not be enough time to spend with my loved ones.

As of right now, I have July 25th-August 4th ( 11 days) and August 24th-September 8th (16 days) So, 27 days of freedom left. What do I do with it?

I HAVE to go see my little brother and sister--I haven't seen them all summer.
I need to spend some time with my mom one-on-one.
I need to visit with my Grammy.
I would like to go out to California to visit my aunt (but that is unlikely with the way my life is changing so much)
I want to spend as much time as I can with Clare before I go.
And of course time with my friends in the KC area.
Not to mention all the time that I need to clear out my room and move my stuff around to get organized.

It'll all work out. And the time I have left with people will be awesome! Like today, I get to see my other best friend and spend the next 5/6 days with her :)

Dear John,

So I arrived in Colorado today. I caught a flight early this morning and spent the day with one of my best friends from college. I met her daughter, Anni-2 months old, as we caught up from the last time I came to visit. We did the usual girly things as we ate chocolate and talked about the old college days and how we wished we had back our girlish figures and then we all took a much needed nap.

The day was perfect, I couldn't have asked for anything more--see, the thing that means the most to me is people. My friends, family, co-workers, colleagues, pretty much anyone that crosses my path and is a good person. The only problem is, I am bad at goodbyes and a goodbye that is going to last over a year is scary.

I'm not scared of going overseas. I'm not scared of the heat. I'm not scared of getting along with all the other soldiers. I'm not even scared of getting shot at, or having to be in a fire fight. I'm scared of the unknown...I'm scared that I won't be as organized as I need to be in preparation to ship out. I'm scared that I don't know where I will be living, or who I will be riding with, or how long we will be on the road, or what our missions will be like. I know I will be fine. I know I will adapt and overcome any obstacle that is put in my path. That's just what I do. And I do it well.

We ended the evening with a delicious home cooked dinner of beef and noodles and a movie. Dear John. Hence, the inspiration for this post. Things will be fine. Things will be great. There's just that unknown factor that I can't plan for. But I am in love with the Army and it will treat me well.

Figurin' this out

So, I'm new to this whole new blogging thing--but I feel that it suits me pretty well. And...since I will soon be gone for what we think is 400 days with limited communication, I figured this would be a good idea to keep y'all up to date. I really don't have much to say right now, as I am in Colorado hanging out with my two best friends for a week, but maybe we will have some eventful things go on that I just NEED to tell you all about! Ha ha. Keep up with me!!