NOTE: This was yesterday's night-time post. When I was ready to post, though, our internet was down. Here it is...better late than never!
After teaching this morning, my friend Kerrie and I decided to go to Fiber Gallery. Kerrie had a couple of projects for which she needed yarn, and she'd never been to this LYS (local yarn store). I have two projects under way, but love Fiber Gallery and knew for a fact that they had the yarn I wanted for Clapotis. I'm using the yarn called for in the pattern, because I know for a fact that it is soft and I adore the colorway. I had fun checking out some great books and even saw a family member modeling in the VOGUE Knitting Winter '07 (which I promptly decided to buy, as if somehow my purchase would further her career). Afterwards we met up with my husband for lunch. It was a really fun late morning/noontime treat. I love spending time with Kerrie, and I'm so glad that we have knitting in common.
I'm having a good break from the sweater - working on a pair of socks. I'm turning the heel of sock #1 and enjoying the self-striping yarn. I'm just using the Yarn Harlot's pattern from her book, Knitting Rules! It's very straight-forward and easy to follow if you have some experience with socks. If you don't have experience, don't worry...she explains it all quite well in the preceding chapter.
I've been playing phone tag with my brother, B. He recently moved to L.A. to pursue screen acting. He's been in theater for a long time and was living in NYC for years. Anyway, he's working with a friend on a project about veterans' stories of the war in Iraq. He asked to pick my brain about my own experiences in the war, especially as I have a rather unique perspective - having served as an officer at Prince Sultan Air Base, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM. Women are still a very small percentage of service members and represent an even smaller percentage in the officer corps.
It's interesting, trying to catch each other so that we can talk about something so BIG (over the phone, no less). I have no problem sharing my experiences, but there's a part of me that's wondering what to tell. When I was in the thick of it, even though I had a perpetual air of disbelief, my job was no more or less out of the ordinary than any of my comrades-in-arms. Looking back through my memories and feelings, I wonder what will be most interesting and helpful. Does he want to know what my daily life was like at that time? How it felt to be constantly worried about my safety (and NOT because of any interactions with the enemy)? What it was like to send aircrews up and just praying that I had given them enough information to keep them from being shot down? Or maybe the laundry list of vaccinations (including small pox) we had to get? How sick I became upon returning home? How long it took me to regain my footing and some semblance of "normalcy"? How I counted the days until I could go home, even though I knew that my orders had been changed to "indefinite"? The heartache of being away from my family and the intolerable knowledge that I wouldn't see my husband for at least a year - or "indefinitely" (that ended up changing drastically, but not until the last minute). The ache in my guts as I tried my damnedest to help the young guys who were under my command stay sane, in spite of the pace we were keeping and the BS we were constantly wading through? The knowledge that whether I believed in the cause or not, I would forever be linked to the events taking place?
What do people want to know about such experiences, and why? Considering that most Americans do not serve in the armed forces, why are we so fascinated with the military? As my grandpa told my younger sister recently: when you're there, all you can think about is coming home and having the house/family/picket fence/quiet life. WWII vets didn't talk about it much because people who haven't been have a really hard time understanding, and it's so very hard to explain in adequate detail. Nowadays we see the wisdom of not bottling things up inside, but that doesn't make it any easier to explain. Just because we vets are talking, doesn't necessarily mean that people will "get it". But then, it would be a sad day if everyone got something so heavy.
Then again, perhaps just hearing more stories will teach people what is, and what isn't, worth fighting for. Maybe it will help people understand the deep responsibility and sacrifice of a military stint - even a short one - so that they can really think twice (or thrice or more) before signing up. Maybe it will help people understand that not all military members are war-monger, and that the experience of going to war can change even the the most bullish of people. What I hope most, however, is that by sharing my experiences people will see our deep capacity for change. They'll see that a woman can look around herself and decide that no matter what, she has to make some serious changes. They'll see that even though she's already had a second chance at life, she can turn it into a new and improved third version. And if that woman can do it, maybe someone reading/watching will understand that they can, too.
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