Profiling a MilBlogger: Carla from Some Soldier’s Mom
Profiling a MilBlogger returns this week as our staff sat down with a fantastic female milblogger – Carla from Some Soldier’s Mom. Let’s see what see had to say shall we:
You Served: What led you to be a Military Blogger?
Some Soldier’s Mom: When my son was getting ready to deploy to Iraq in late 2004, I was surfing the web to find information on what he might experience and what parents’ go through and any useful information that I could use.
I found a number of military blogs (milblogs) by soldiers but nothing from a parent, so I started Some Soldier’s Mom (www.somesoldiersmom.blogspot.com) as a way to share what I thought was a unique and important experience — to let people know what it was like to have a child at war.
YS: Do you feel that being a female Military Bloggers adds a unique perspective to your blog? If yes, how so?
SSM: Definitely yes. While I can be strident in my views about the war on terror and the necessity of our Country’s mission in Iraq, I am a mother first. It is a unique role — we experience emotions and have a perspective different from the soldiers (who can’t understand why we worry or cry so much) and wives (who willingly took on the role of military wife and has a daily relationship with their soldier).
I have written that a parent sending their son or daughter to war is one of the most counter-intuitive experiences a person can ever have: you spend 18 (or 19, 20… ) years protecting them and making sure that they are never too hot or too cold, that they are protected from biting bugs and making sure they are not anywhere that people might be shooting at them. Then you are called upon to be brave and [somewhat] cheerful as you send your child off to a place where it is always too hot or too cold, there are bugs the size of small dogs and people are shooting at them and trying to blow them up.
I also feel that female milbloggers bring a view not driven by the battlefield experience but by the support role expected of families back home. I have never been to war, but I have sent a child to war.
YS: What impact has your blog had on you and those who are part of your blogging community?
SSM: Writing Some Soldier’s Mom has allowed me to be a part of a community that is actively involved in telling the truth about what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and providing an alternative to the bias found in the regular media. For me, personally, it has allowed me to bring my emotions and experiences and advice to other mothers and to spouses and to make a contribution to morale at home… and at times to let soldiers know what we’re going through “here” while they are “there”.
Now with a number of Veterans in the family (husband, two sons — including one disabled) it is allowing me the opportunity to write on Veterans issues, benefits and care from a personal perspective — one that sometimes is opposite of the “suck it up and drive on” attitude of the soldiers themselves.
The biggest change for me is having the opportunity to have the experiences of military parents and the sacrifices their children make exposed in a larger venue. The story of the night in 2005 that we received word of our son’s wounding was published in the 2006 book THE BLOG OF WAR:Front-Line Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan (Simon & Schuster) which is a collection of the best milblog entries selected and compiled by the milblogger Blackfive, Matt Burden.
And a portion of the letter I wrote to my son the night before he deployed was selected from more than 10,000 pages of submittals in connection with Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families (Random House) which is a result of the National Endowment for the Arts and Department of Defense initiative for members of the military and their families to write their war time experiences.
YS: How have the experiences of your sons changed your outlook?
SSM: I try not to sweat the small stuff (I’m not always successful).
Hearing someone on the other end of the phone say, “Your son has been seriously wounded by an IED” knocks you down… and when you get up, your priorities are completely changed. Even now that he is physically recovered (although not without continuing effects), when he is having a hard time and I get frustrated, I remind myself that I got on my knees the night he was wounded and told God that if He would just let our son live, we’d deal with everything later… and this is “the later”.
YS: What is the best part about being a MilBlogger?
SSM: The best part is hearing from parents and spouses and getting their emails thanking me for writing my experiences… that those are their experiences as well but they didn’t know how to put them into words…
and how much comfort they take knowing that there are others out there who are feeling exactly the same as they are. Letters from soldiers thanking me for helping their moms and families through… and exposing them to a perspective that they otherwise would not have thought much about.
YS: What advice would you give to a woman who wants to start her own MilBlog?
SSM: If she has something useful to contribute to the “discussion” DO IT.
