Remembering and Looking to the Future

I was clearing some of the "way too much stuff" on my desktop and found this. Sorry it is so long, I do ramble, don't I? This took place last Spring.

Friday morning was pretty exciting in our neighborhood. Gabriel had spent the night and we were just eating breakfast when he got very excited because he could hear a “hewicopter”. I listened and realized that it was close and flying LOW. We ran out front just in time to see it head west and could tell that it was getting lower all the time. So of course we ran in got the keys, grabbed shoes, to put on in the car, and started to make chase . . . for two whole blocks.

It was career day at De Grazia Elementary and the National Guard brought a helicopter to show the kids. We gawked through the fence and then finally came home to call and see if we could go on campus and see it up close. They let us so we got dressed (oops!) and went back with Garrett in tow as well. It was pretty cool, but boy did it bring a flood of memories and feelings for me.

First memory was going back to the fifties. I lived on a cotton farm south of Las Cruces, NM. It was very not far from Ft. Bliss, so, we often had planes going over. Whenever I hear a big old cargo or bomber going over, it takes me back to those days of hot afternoons when Mom sent me in for a "nap" and I could hear the B-52's drone over. They must have had a scheduled flight at my nap time. Mom did the cub scout and brownie thing so we kids could have those opportunities. She would take the groups out to the air base for field trips.

Years later when we lived just outside of Holbrook, we would hear the big lumbering planes go over on hot afternoons. They would be going by so low and slow that we could see men standing in side doors. They would often wave back to the kids . . . very cool.

Looking at the big helicopter made me think about the footage I have seen on the TV and what has been going on the last few years, about the day that Desert Storm started.

Do you remember what you were doing when the news announced that the first planes had taken off that afternoon? I was buying a new portable carousel for our old microwave oven. Mariah was standing there listening to the sales clerk and I chatting and noticed that we suddenly stopped talking. Later, she said that she was pretty shook up when she saw the tears going down my cheeks. As we drove back to Holbrook from Snowflake, I tried to explain to her how I felt about the Vietnam War and how it had been, watching friends being sent over there . . . how frustrating it had been when it went on for so many years and I suspected it was to help keep the economy strong. I didn't tell her that I wondered if it would go on so long that my young son, her little brother, might end up involved in it.

That got me thinking about the morning of the 9/11 attacks. I was waiting to get across the freeway to get to work and heard the strangest stuff on the radio. I thought it was must be "The War of the Worlds” broadcast that had been on the radio many years ago. I have heard a recording of that radio show, couldn't believe they had put something like that on the air, then or now. What were they thinking? What if someone came on in the middle of the program and didn't know what it was. Then the horror finally dawned me what I was actually listening to! As time went on, I knew that when Rob came home from his mission in a few short weeks, he would consider joining in the fight for our man’s freedom. He did, but it didn’t work out for then.

August 14, 2009

Rob will be leaving for boot camp in two days. I have a flood of feelings, many conflicting. I was raised with a great love for this choice land that we live in. I was taught that it part of a man's role in this life to defend it. It can be a struggle when your son is getting involved!

My parents had been affected greatly by WWII and their memories were fresh, so I heard a lot about it and what it had been like as I grew up. When the war in Iraq started, I felt like it was the right thing to do. Now, depending on what my son decides in the future and circumstances beyond our control, it could involve him, his sweet wife and daughters and our entire family.

I hope he knows that he will be constantly in our prayers and that we will support him in his decisions. We will do all that we can to be a support for our daughter-on-law and granddaughters while he is gone. My dad was a long distance trucker and I remember what it was like when Daddy is gone for weeks and months at a time. It can make life pretty interesting.