Have you ever read a story that captures your mind, your heart and your imagination? I visit a blog regularly that is dedicated to strengthening military marriages. The blog is called Excellent or Praiseworthy, and they offer a deployment love challenge as well as devotions meant to encourage and inspire marital strength and fidelity. It is an outreach of campus crusade for Christ. The story below was so beautiful that I wanted to share it here. I was truly blessed reading of this young couple — both serving in the Army during WWII, and how they were only married for 2 days before they faced a separation for more than 3-years! Letters were their only way to communicate their love for one another, but their commitment to their marriage only grew stronger through the time they were separated. Read on!
It’s Valentine’s Day, 2008. I wanted to wait for this special day to share with you a tender (yet powerful) story of a young Christian couple who kept their marriage strong and vibrant during World War II. Married for two days, they were separated by active duty for three and a half years (he on the front lines in Germany and she serving in the Pacific, in Papua New Guinea). When I met them in 1990, they had been married for almost fifty years. They went on, from that point, to live and love together another 10 years before he passed away. Recently I sat down with Louise, now living with her daughter and son-in-law, and recorded her story.
Louise and Eugene met while attending classes at Gardner-Webb College in North Carolina in 1940. . . . and Louise is quick to say that what attracted her to Eugenewas that he was a good Christian and he always treated her like a lady.
But after two years of dating he was drafted, and it wasn’t long before he found out that he was going to be assigned overseas. Unbeknownst to Eugene, Louise had also decided to join the Army through the prompting of her brother. When Eugene found out that Louise had enlisted, he said that he thought it was a good idea. “I’ll know where you are and you’ll know where I am,”he said. Then over the phone fromDelaware he asked if he could come down to where she was training at Ft. Stewartand “get married before I leave.”She said yes, as did her father and her commanding officer. They were married, both in uniform, in Savannah, Georgia, in January of 1942. Two days later he left for training to prepare for Germany. They did not see one another until the war ended in 1945.
Intrigued by her courageous story, I had to ask several key questions that evening:
Knowing that your husband was in combat every day, how would you pray for him? Louise answered, “I would just turn him over to the Lord. I told Him that I couldn’t do anything but He could do it all.”
She added a story of witnessing to her bunkmate, “Well, I had my Bible with me, and my bunkmate from New York. . . she asked me one night ‘Louise, what are you reading?’ And I said, ‘My Bible.’ Then she said, ‘Why are you reading?’ And I said, ‘Because I like to and I get my strength from the Lord’. .. I had to explain everything from beginning to end how I became a Christian. She said, ‘Louise can I see your Bible? I want to read it.’” Louise told her that the next time they would go to the PX she would see if they had a small pocket Bible. “So I bought her one. And when I would read, she would read.”
How would you and Eugene communicate with each other? “He would write when he could, and I would write every night.” Louise told me that during one spell, she didn’t hear from Eugene for two months — and she had to go to her commanding officer to begin an investigation to try and find out what had happened. Turns out he, and others, were being hidden by a Belgium family after they were separated from their unit during the fighting in Bastogne. Louise heard from him again when he returned to his unit. Eugene and she stayed in touch with that brave family even after the war.
Did he ever talk about the war after he got home? “A little bit, but not too much. He wouldn’t. . . He was mum on a lot of stuff. Whether he wanted to forget. . . .I don’t know. . . .So I just let him talk when he wanted to. . . . In the summer time, if it came a thunder cloud, I would have to put him in a car and go to ride. He thought it was guns shooting. It took him a good while to get over that, but he did.” CONTINUE READING
I really thought the following article was a well presented perspective on the stresses that spouses go through during deployment or extended times of separation. The article touches on everything from dealing with new financial stress (making decisions alone) to extra-marital affairs and their possible connection to later suicide. So many of these things, particularly the sexual temptations on the home front, are often not discussed much and are not discussed with the serious repercussions that marital infidelity brings with it. I am glad the article at least mentions it.
I am getting ready to read a good book on sexual integrity — mainly on keeping the thought life under control and how affairs start in the mind and then move into an action. I will share more here in the near future.
The article goes into depth on a number of issues. I linked to the rest of it at the bottom.
EXCERPT
The long, dark tunnel: spouses and deployment
Sep 28, 2009
By Brittany Carlson (USAG Stuttgart)
STUTTGART, Germany — For a military spouse, the long, dark tunnel of deployment is paved with new challenges and responsibilities.
While their service member spouse is away, the husband or wife left behind juggles children, finances, managing the home and work – alone.
Add to this the loneliness of losing a partner and best friend, and the end result can be overwhelming, even traumatic, if the spouse create a support system for themselves.
Military spouses must become more independent during deployments, said Dr. Eric N. Leong, chief of behavioral health for the Stuttgart Army Health Clinic. “They don’t have a choice.”
Financial decisions can be very challenging, he added, especially if the deployed service member used to manage them.
“They’re not used to balancing a budget … they start using credit for everything,” Leong said. “They get into debt.”
In addition to money matters, deployments give spouses on-the-job training in doing other things that their service member spouse used to do. They become both mother and father to the children. They fix cars, cook, clean, try to stay in touch with their spouse, and, in some cases, have jobs besides.
“You go through stages of resentment and bitterness – and happiness, because you also know that you can do these things on your own,” said Lorraine ‘Raine’ Flores, a Navy spouse in Stuttgart, who has been apart from her husband for two 6-month deployments and several temporary duty tours.
REACHING OUT
The temporary loss of a partner and co-worker in the home makes outside relationships and involvement vital for spouses coping with a deployment.
For Flores, a mother of two, the hardest part of parenting during a deployment is not being able to bounce ideas off of her partner. “You’re not even able to discuss certain things, like child-rearing,” she said. “You have to make those decisions on your own.”
She found comfort in her friends, whom she considers an extended family.
“Both [deployments], I made a good core group of girlfriends with the same circumstances,” Flores said. “You need people. There’s no way to get through it without friends.”
Without the support of other people, the loneliness can become unbearable.
When Ronda Hayes, a mother of three, whose husband is on a 12-month deployment to Afghanistan, started to feel depressed after her spouse left, she sought help at the mental health clinic and began regular counseling.
Her advice to other spouses facing the same issue is simple: “If you think you’re getting depressed, go see somebody. It’s not only hard on the spouse; it’s hard on the kids and the deployed service member.”
The garrison offers free support programs, such as counseling through the Religious Support Office, classes at Army Community Service and Family Readiness Groups.CONTINUE READING
The other day I wrote about the band Smile Empty Soul and the free download of the song This is War which they wrote in honor of the troops. Well they have given me both the original explicit version and the clean version for any and all troops or troop families to download. You can grab them from:
They were supposed to be on the You Served Radio show last week, but Sean Danielsen broke his leg last week and was laid up in the hospital. Well being the real trooper he is, Sean wanted to get back on the show and make good on his commitment to us. So he will be on You Served Radio this week (Oct. 1st) which airs from 7-9PM EST at www.blogtalkradio.com/youserved as it always does.
Not only is Sean coming on the show as a representative of the band and offering the download for free, they have agreed to send You Served some signed posters, CDs and a brand new signed Schecter guitar for us to auction off at our You Served Ebay Store in order to raise money for Soldier’s Angels.
So if you have not checked out our You Served Ebay Store lately, you better start keeping an eye there.
Small veteran-owned contracting firms already struggle to compete against larger outfits for lucrative government projects.
But a House bill meant to help those veterans obtain surety bonding will actually do more harm than good, an industry figure recently told the U.S. House Veterans Affairs subcommittee.
The measure, H.R. 294, is called the “Veteran-Owned Small Business Promotion Act of 2009.” It would allow small veteran-owned contractors to obtain performance and payment bonds for federal construction projects that are half the normal size.
Lynn M. Schubert, president of the Surety & Fidelity Association, told the subcommittee in late September that the legislation would actually hurt the veterans who lawmakers sought to help.
Schubert testified that reducing the bond amount would not affect availability or make a small veteran-owned contractor more competitive. In fact, reducing the bond amount would actually expose taxpayers to harm because of “additional costs and subcontractors and suppliers to the risk of nonpayment if there is a default,” she told the subcommittee.
Surety bonds are three-way agreements between surety companies, project owners and contractors. Performance and payment bonds ensure that work is performed as specified by a contract and that the winning contractor pays all subcontractors, suppliers and laborers as detailed by the contract. These bonds are required for all federal projects in excess of $10,000.
Instead of altering the bond amount, Schubert suggested that lawmakers look for more impactful ways to help veteran-owned businesses. Chief among those avenues is boosting contractors’ access to capital and collateral.
She also urged the subcommittee to push for federal regulations that would subdivide construction contracts into bite-sized pieces, which would enable small veteran-owned contractors and other fledgling firms the opportunity to succeed.
“Small veteran-owned contractors should be permitted to joint venture with larger contractors, using the larger contractor’s surety bond relationship to obtain the bonds for the project and develop an independent relationship with the surety for future projects,” Schubert said.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has authorized checks for up to $3,000 to be given to students who have applied for educational benefits and who have not yet received their government payment. The checks will be distributed to eligible students at VA regional benefits offices across the country starting Oct. 2, 2009.
“Students should be focusing on their studies, not worrying about financial difficulties,” Secretary Shinseki said. “Education creates life-expanding opportunities for our Veterans.”
Starting Friday, Oct. 2, 2009, students can go to one of VA’s 57 regional benefit offices with a photo ID and a course schedule to request advance payment of their education benefits. Because not all these offices are located near students, VA expects to send representatives to schools with large Veteran-student bodies and work with Veteran Service Organizations to help students with transportation needs.
“I’m asking our people to get out their road maps and determine how we can reach the largest number of college students who can’t reach us,” VA’s Under Secretary for Benefits Patrick Dunne said. “Not everyone has a car. Not everyone can walk to a VA benefits office.”
Although VA does not know how many students will request emergency funds, it has approximately 25,000 claims pending that may result in payments to students.
The funds VA will give to students now are advance payments of the earned benefits for education benefits. This money will be deducted from future education payments.
VA officials said students should know that after this special payment, they can expect to receive education payments on the normal schedule — the beginning of the month following the period for which they are reimbursed.
“This is an extraordinary action we’re taking,” said Shinseki. “But it’s necessary because we recognize the hardships some of our Veterans face.”
More than 27,500 students have already received benefits for housing or books under the new Post-9/11 GI Bill, or their schools received their tuition payments.
This is a great story to read which will show you how justice should be handled sometime within the community. I think Valley Falls may be on to something here.
This is a red, white and blue village that is still seeing red after a flag that flew over Iraq was burned by a 21-year-old.
The payback? He was publicly humiliated last Sunday by being duct-taped to the flagpole of Veterans of Foreign War 1938 say he desecrated Sept. 18.
The bottom line is that the VFW post witnessed an infraction against their property, so they enacted a punishment that they felt was just and fair.
The 21-year-old appeared intoxicated when he entered the VFW post on the day of the alleged act, Normile said. When the man was refused service for not having a proper ID, he ran out in a fit of anger. He cut the rope of the flag, which had once flown over troops in Iraq, and ignited it with a cigarette lighter.
Two days later, Normile said the man was forced to sit in the sun pilloried for six hours as townspeople gathered across the street for a youth soccer picnic. A sign was hung around his neck detailing what he had done. It recalled the Middle Ages punishment, subjecting him to public humiliation and scorn.
"He’ll never disrespect the flag again, I can tell you that," Normile said on Friday.
And apparently the local police don’t see a problem with the way the VFW handled the situation either.
State troopers and Rensselaer County sheriffs deputies said no charges had been filed by either the VFW post or the man
According to the Army, there are five dimensions of strenth:
* Physical – Performing and excelling in physical activities that require aerobic fitness, endurance, strength, healthy body composition and flexibility derived through exercise, nutrition and training.
* Emotional – Approaching life’s challenges in a positive, optimistic way by demonstrating self control, stamina and good character with your choices and actions.
* Social – Developing and maintaining trusted, valued relationships and friendships that are personally fulfilling and foster good communication including a comfortable exchange of ideas, views, and experiences.
* Family – Being part of a family unit that is safe, supportive and loving, and provides the resources needed for all members to live in a healthy and secure environment.
* Spiritual – Strengthening a set of beliefs, principles or values that sustain a person beyond family, institutional, and societal sources of strength.
About a year ago, the Army established the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program. Subordinate to the Army G-3/5/7, the mission is to “develop and institute a holistic fitness program for Soldiers, families, and Army civilians in order to enhance performance and build resilience” in order to “build confidence to lead, courage to stand up for one’s beliefs and compassion to help others. Comprehensive Soldier Fitness is about maximizing one’s potential.”
The Army is aggressively attacking the stigma associated with mental health issues and recently introduced “resiliency training.” We spoke briefly about that on our show last week.
Recently, Brigadier General Wanda Cornum spoke about this project.
A few years ago when I was stationed in the DC area, I had the opportunity to attend the “Time of Remembrance” ceremony near the White House at the National Mall.
The purpose of the tribute is to bring together the families of America’s fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan and to acknowledge the sacrifice they have made. Families were brought together from across the country. This tribute, held on the grounds of the Washington Monument, honors those who have died in service to their country and the families they left behind.
You can see more photos from this year’s moving event at Army Live.
Yesterday, I was supposed to take part in a blogger’s roundtable with the VA about the delinquencies in sending out GI Bill benefits to veterans. Unfortunately, I had a last minute issue I had to take care of and wasn’t able to call in. However, there were others there that wrote about the call and I wanted to share some of what was said.
Richard Smith at VetVoice noted this little gem that I frankly don’t believe judging from the comments on my last post on this issue.
First off, all of the VA staff on the call noted that the processing goal for GI Bill benefits is 25 days. Currently, the average is 35 days. The Secretary and Directors on the call all noted that this is unacceptable and indicated measures they are taking to fix the problem. This weekend alone, VA will have 900 employees working 3000 hours of overtime to process GI Bill claims.
I don’t care about the VA touting how many overtime hours they’re working to process these claims. They KNEW what was coming down the pike. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this is going to be a BIG deal and require a lot of man power. They had a year to prepare for it. If that wasn’t enough time, the VA – and/or Congress – could have extended the deadline contained in the law. Obviously, their 3000 hours of overtime isn’t enough and our veterans are paying out of pocket for their benefits. This isn’t a criticism on Richard, but the VA.
The Department expressed extreme regret over not effectively communicating with Veterans on what to expect with GI Bill processing. They are preparing a “Survival Guide” document for the Spring 2010 and future semesters. The VA is promising that future semesters will run smoother, now that the Department knows what to expect.
How many times is the VA going to have to explain themselves. In May, they were supposedly “geared up a big education campaign about what it does and doesn’t deliver.” This was BEFORE everything took effect. They even set up a website and a toll-free telephone number (1-888-GI-BILL-1) to help with this. Typically, it didn’t do it’s job.
In September of last year, after the bill was passed and signed into law, the VA hired a contractor to handle claims.
“The contractor will be accountable for providing timely and accurate education claims processing by completing original claims [within] 10 days, supplemental claims [within] seven days, and by achieving an accuracy rate of at least 98 percent,” said Keith Pedigo, an associate deputy under secretary at the VA. (emphasis mine)
So, is the VA still paying this contractor if they aren’t living up to their contract? Read the rest of Richard’s writeup on the call HERE.
Well we were looking forward to having members of the band Smile Empty Soul on the You Served Radio show tonight, but one of the members got hurt and they had to postpone. So in the meantime I wanted to highlight the fact that they are offering a free download of two songs that they combined in one mp3. The first song is meant for the troops and is called This is War, the 2nd song if their very popular Don’t Ever Leave.
"This Is War" i’m just a normal man i wouldn’t hurt nothing at all but here we are our leaders have a plan i’d only kill if it’s for them now here we are i drove in a car and flew in a plane to come to your house and kick your door in now it’s down to this, it’s just you and me i’ll blow your fucking head off for my country i go to church and tithe i go to work in a suit and tie but this is war i’m really not sure why but the tv says that you are wrong now here we are [chorus] my feet hurt from the sand but still i march on gun in hand cause this is war this isn’t what i planned i wanted to be so much more but this is war [chorus]
