Knee Deep in the Hooah!

I go to The Tension on a daily basis to look at the incredible combat pictures that are posted there. I have to admit that sometimes I look hard to see if I can spot my own soldier when there is an indication that he may be in the vicinity of the pictures posted. The article I have linked to is a wonderful

Excerpt:

News in balance:

Reports of success in Iraq came early Sunday morning but were whisked out of sight by the time folks started to wake up on the East Coast.

The news? U.S. and Iraqi forces report they have killed 90 al Qaeda fighters around Baghdad during one of the biggest combined offensives against the Sunni Islamist group since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to Reuters.

However, Reuters tempered the report of success by noting seven U.S. soldiers were killed in roadside bomb attacks in and around the capital on Saturday, underscoring a warning from military commanders that U.S. casualties are likely to mount as more troops are put in harm’s way.

Please take a moment and read the entire article. It’s a great read, and the pictures are awesome!

Coalition Forces Kill 90 al Qaeda in Current Operations

Tags: Junk Drawer by Claire
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I didn’t forget, honestly! I actually have had one of those scattered weekends. It has felt fairly crazy as we prepare for moving next weekend.

So, here are your two ways to help for this weekend! The first one is very interesting, and I can see a need for the services — it is a very unique niche! Also, there is still a need for emails to be sent to our brave Marines, and shoes are still needed for Iraqi children. If you happened to have missed those two Ways please take a peek and see what you can do.

NetPets.Org’s
MilitaryPetsFOSTER Project^©
Keeping Love Waiting^©

A NationWide & Global network of Individual Foster Homes that will house, nurture and care for the dogs, cats, birds, horses and all other pets for all the Military personnel Only.
(Foster: to give temporary nurture, care and shelter.)

As of April, 2002 ALL the Pets of the Military are now classified as “Part Of The Family”!

To apply to become a Foster home please click here
To make a Charitable Donation please click here

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scholarships for Military Children

Commissaries are an integral part of the quality of life offered to service members and their families. The Scholarships for Military Children Program was created in recognition of the contributions of military families to the readiness of the fighting force and to celebrate the role of the commissary in the military family community. It is the intent of the program that a scholarship funded through contributions be awarded annually for each commissary operated by the Defense Commissary Agency worldwide.

If you would like to contribute please visit this page.

Tags: Junk Drawer by Claire
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I have been following Michael Yon’s incredible reporting (hat tip to Some Soldier’s Mom) of what is happening in Baquba, Iraq and how Operation Arrowhead Ripper is going. I have read that there are Stryker Combat Teams on the scene. The team mentioned in Yon’s account is not the same team my son is on, and I chatted with him very briefly this morning (well morning his time!) I honestly do not know if his team will be called to Baquba or not. I never ask - I let him offer information as he can and will. This is one of the strongest offensives to be launched since the beginning of this war. We wanted to see changes in Iraq? Well, here they are!

Please keep our soldiers in the forefront of your prayers during this Operation. Also, please visit Von’s page and if you like his reporting consider donating as he is not supported by any major news companies (that right there makes him a good read!)

From Michael Yon’s site:
Our guys are winning. Al Qaeda is about to be strangled and pummeled to death in this town, but the local Iraqi leadership is severely wanting. This was most obviously noted in one area in particular, where there were some slight indicators of a possible humanitarian need. “Crisis” certainly is not the correct word, but there are displaced persons numbering at least in the hundreds. LTC Fred Johnson actually took me out there. (The access even to “bad” news is amazing with this Brigade.)

Tags: Junk Drawer by Claire
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Hi, my name is Claire, and I am addicted to boring clothing and shoes. (Hi, Claire!)

How much Khaki, brown, and cream colored clothes can one woman own? I am currently shopping for a dress for Bryan’s graduation from BCT next month. It seems that every time I find a dress I like it is khaki, brown or cream colored (or somewhere within that color vicinity). I do like a nice muted pink, but really it fits with the browns, so that doesn’t count as variety.

I would love to find a nice, thin and cool, faux wrap dress in navy, but so far I can’t seem to find just what I have in mind. See, I can do Navy. It’s all of these wild prints, vivid colors, and revealing styles that just don’t appeal to me. I have been a very boring dresser for years. I have been a mom for 22 years, and my profession is not one that embraces the wild side of fashion. See I was destined to dress boring.

Also, let me cut to the chase, I just don’t have the money to keep up. I have several linen skirts in various colors and they never go out of style — partly because they were never in style. I know there are many like me — the vogue challenged. One day we will rule the fashion industry and those of you sporting those bright lime green prints will be lusting after our muted hues, pastels, and modest clothing. Just wait, one day runway models will be sporting khaki skirts that they bought at jjill! Until then I have a dress to find!

Edited to update: Ok, so I finally broke down and bought a cute capri-pant set from jjill. It’s not khaki! I went totally wild with it and got it in a color called Creme Brulee! OK, so it’s a safe color and safe style. What can I say? Old habits (as in behaviors not as in what Nuns wear) are hard to break.

Tags: boring fashion by Claire
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Some Soldier’s Mom: Our Guys Want to Kill Them, and That’s the Plan.

Some Soldier’s Mom has linked to Michael Yon’s blog regarding Operation Arrowhead Ripper. This is an important read. Also, please visit Yon’s blog for your Friday’s way to help. Yon is reader supported and he is doing a great job reporting what is happening in Iraq. Please consider donating to this very important mission!

Michael Yon does not receive funding or financial support from Fox News, movie, book or television deals at this time. He is entirely reader supported. He relies on his readers to help him replace his equipment and cover his expenses so that he may remain in Iraq and bring you the stories of our soldiers. If you value his work, please consider supporting his mission.

Tags: combat, deployment, military by Claire
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The entry below is taken from Michelle Malkin’s site. Please write a letter of support. I am getting ready to write one tonight. This is the easiest, and most direct way to help that I have posted so far!

Milblogger project: Send an e-mail of support
By Michelle Malkin
June 20, 2007 09:35 PM

Grim at Blackfive interviewed Col. Simcock of Regimental Combat Team 6. The colonel asked Americans to send letters of support to RCT-6:

GRIM: Is there anything that you and your Marines need that we could send you?

COL. SIMCOCK: (Chuckles.) I’ll tell you what, the one thing that all Marines want to know about — and that includes me and everyone within Regimental Combat Team 6 — we want to know that the American public are behind us. We believe that the actions that we’re taking over here are very, very important to America. We’re fighting a group of people that, if they could, would take away the freedoms that America enjoys.

If anyone — you know, just sit down, jot us — throw us an e- mail, write us a letter, let us know that the American public are behind us. Because we watch the news just like everyone else. It’s broadcast over here in our chow halls and the weight rooms, and we watch that stuff, and we’re a little bit concerned sometimes that America really doesn’t know what’s going on over here, and we get sometimes concerns that the American public isn’t behind us and doesn’t see the importance of what’s going on. So that’s something I think that all Marines, soldiers and sailors would like to hear from back home, that in fact, yes, they think what we’re doing over here is important and they are in fact behind us.

Thanks to the Blackfive team’s efforts so far, 1,700 e-mails have come in.

Help them out. There are 6,000 members of RCT-6. Send your e-mail of support to:

RCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil

(CC your e-mail to me at writemalkin@gmail.com so I can print a selection.)

Check out the combat team’s blog here.

Tags: Junk Drawer by Claire
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I have made Soldiers’ Angels Germany a weekly treat in my blogs to read and enjoy list. I found them through some posts on Butterfly Wife’s blog. I know I have already highlighted Soldiers’ Angels, but I found a great blog entry today that highlights another way to help. Please read the following letter posted at SA-G. After you read the letter below I want you to go out and get a flat rate box, fill it with children’s shoes and ship it off. I challenge you to have at least one small box sent off by next week! If each of us were to ship one or two boxes over we could collectively make a huge difference in the lives of these children, their families, as well as showing our troops that we support them and what they are doing.

From SA contact LtCol Eric in Mosul:

I am writing to you today because of the sad and destitute situation that the children of Mosul, Iraq find themselves in on a daily basis. After seeing these unfortunate children in the urban battlefield everyday for six months, I can assure you that their difficulties are very real and beyond the power of their parents to fix. These children, in many cases, lack some of the most basic necessities that you and I take for granted and that we would never let our own children go without.

A great deal of media coverage has been devoted to the efforts of our Army today and humanitarian groups to bring comfort items like new backpacks and soccer balls to Iraqi children. This battalion has even aided those initiatives on several occasions and, although I know they enjoyed their toys, I had to watch these same five and six year old children run outside to play with their new soccer balls in the sewage and filth of the city without any shoes. I know that there is no parent among us who would ever let their children play in such an environment at all, much less without attending to their most basic clothing and sanitary needs.

As I am sure you know, this war is not a war of battles won, regiments destroyed, and cities captured. Rather, this is a war fought on the “human terrain” of the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people; a war for the very soul of a nation where single gestures and one time events can be as profound and far reaching as a hundred Gettysburgs or D-Days. If we can just provide shoes for these children we stand poised to win a major victory indeed.

Therefore, I am asking your help in turning this goal into a reality, and play a vital role in bringing comfort to the local Iraqi children and in striking a victory against a cold and murderous insurgency. Given the unique nature the conflict we are embroiled in, sending something as simple as shoes to local children will aid your Soldiers in this fight just as surely as a shipment of bullets or bombs.

I feel I must warn you that these people will probably never know who you are, or recognize the role you played, but I can assure you that little boys and girls like the one pictured in this letter will be profoundly grateful for even the smallest bit of help from you. Please take a moment to clean out a closet or visit a shoe store and do your part for our cause. Any and all donations are welcome. Please send them to:

CIVIL AFFAIRS
Operation Good Shoes
HHC, 2-7 Cav
4BCT, 1CD
FOB Marez
APO, AE 09334

On behalf of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment and the citizens of Mosul, I thank you for any help you can provide. A single pair of shoes may not win a war, but the difference it will make to the one child who receives them just might help push us in that direction.

Feel free to forward this email to any family, friend, church, classroom, or civic group who might have asked you how they can help a Soldier in Iraq. Rest assured, helping these people helps us Soldiers a great deal.

LtCol Eric

Tags: Junk Drawer by Claire
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Curly headed pirate is my new nickname for Emma. It used to be peeker because when she was just a little baby she would sometimes peek at me with one eye open and the other closed as tight as she could get it. She has a mopsy top full of spiral curls, and blue eyes that sparkle and dance with mischief as their backdrop. She’s as whimsical and magical as an elf or fairy, and is more vexatious than any monster that Hans Christian Anderson could have ever imagined!

She is my daughter, and some days I wonder how we will make it through the long absence without our Noble Prince Hooah. I never wonder, though, how life would be without her. That would be like wondering how life would be without air. It’s inconceivable!

My little curly headed pirate has had to go through some of her own adjustments with her papa’s absence. Sometimes she is able to really articulate what the problem is, but most times there is just some general whining and clinging. I am acutely aware of her pangs and anxieties. Her life, up until a little more than a month ago, consisted of one mama, one papa, two brothers at home, and one brother living away from home (but would still visit), grandparents, and one house — the only house she ever slept in. Suddenly our brother who is away can no longer come home for visits, her house sold, her papa left and one of her brothers living at home moved out to start his own life in an apartment so he can continue on with college. We are in a strange house, we are not unpacked, we are moving again, and she has not heard her papa’s voice for over a month. She does hear from him though because I tell her that he loves her, misses her, and can’t wait to see her.

When Bryan was still home, he and Emma were a team. I know why he had a certain bounce in his step when I would see him walking up the driveway after work. That bounce was an excitement and an anticipation of what Emma was doing, saying and learning. The two were partner’s in crime — how many nights did Emma get Oreo cookies for bed time snack? You would have to ask her papa who would sit there and eat a half a bag with her! Bryan held her many a sleepless night, and he rocked her as much as he could. He wore her on his chest when she was an infant — he wore her with more pride than a soldier wearing a hard earned medal. He is a very good father.

She got a little birthday card from him yesterday. He wrote it out on her birthday, but it only made it to the mail late last week. She carried that little card around with her all day today. Bryan doodled a little bunny rabbit in the card for her, so she keeps saying “Look! Look at what my papa drew to me!” She slept with it last night. Here all this time I was worrying about how I would be able to keep the bonds between her and her papa strong while he is away, and now I realize I just need to keep doing what I do. I will keep telling her that her papa loves her and misses her, and I will let God and Emma’s sweet memories do the rest.

Tags: family life by Claire
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