BSF Blog: In For The Long Haul | Blue Star Families

Giving Thanks before Thanksgiving | Post date: 11/25/2009 - 21:13

by Alison Buckholtz

I remember the year we celebrated Thanksgiving on a Sunday evening in October. It was the fall of 2007, the night before my husband, Scott, left for his seven-month deployment on an aircraft carrier. Other military wives, far more seasoned than I, gave me the idea to whip up one giant festive dinner to mark all of the holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones that my husband would miss while his squadron was in the Persian Gulf. It was a long list: Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Ethan’s fifth birthday, Estee’s third birthday, and our wedding anniversary, to list just a few.

I wasn’t sure how to handle such a significant meal, so I started with dessert, ordering the most elaborate, celebration-neutral sheet cake Costco had to offer. If nothing else, I knew the kids would love the icing-filled multicolored balloons, and I hoped the three of us would be able to float on their sugary ballast for a few days after the farewell. For dinner, I made some sort of chicken dish in the crock pot. I wrapped gifts for Scott to give the kids, and hid them under the couch.

I’d been tutored on how to handle the menu, the presents, and the general sense of occasion but not the emotion. Because it wasn’t, of course, a celebratory meal; it was a sad goodbye. (Once I jokingly called it “the last supper,” but the horrified look on Scott’s face reminded me that gallows humor is just that.) The chicken emerged from the pot simultaneously salty and tasteless. Our speeches on what we were grateful for sounded like we were trying too hard, and our birthday songs to the kids echoed, to me, an ancient dirge. At the end of the meal, Ethan and Estee blew out the candles on the cake, smiling and happy. But the knot in my throat kept me silent.

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Spouse Speak: Thanksgiving Traditions | Post date: 11/25/2009 - 16:50

by Sue Hoppin

Anyone who’s been stationed overseas will appreciate the special care that has to be taken in preparing a basic holiday meal in a foreign country. The commissary ensures that we have all the necessities: pumpkin pie fixings, all the components for chestnut stuffing, a monstrously large turkey and all the accoutrements that go along with it. However, as we quickly learned, just because you have a turkey and an oven, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be roasting that turkey in that oven!

We lived on the economy in Germany and didn’t have the luxury of American appliances. Not being much of a baker, I never gave it much thought - until the holidays rolled around and it became time to prepare those huge family meals. It was with much surprise that we learned many of our American cooking tools were incompatible with our German appliances, most markedly…our roasting pan meant to snugly accommodate a large Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas rib roast. Our compact European oven was having nothing to do with it! We had to go out and buy a much smaller disposable pan that would fit in the oven; that required downsizing our turkey – really, at this point, it was more of a very large chicken. Not quite the impact we were hoping for (I was really quite excited about seeing our German friends’ expressions when we carted that 20 lb turkey to the table!!!), but you adjust.

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A Safe Place | Post date: 11/25/2009 - 00:12

by Saralyn Mark, M.D.

I’ve been awake for about 40 hours, catching just two hours of sleep the night before while on a plane to Berlin. I arrived in Berlin yesterday to give a speech at a medical conference that started today. When I got to the hotel last night, I was so excited I was finally going to get some rest. But at 9:30 p.m. Berlin time life changed for all of us with any military connection.

As I was getting ready for bed, I turned on the television and tuned into the only English-speaking station: CNN. My heart froze as I saw the special news bulletin that soldiers had been killed and many injured at Ft. Hood in Texas. I awaited more news and could not believe what I was hearing. When I learned that the suspect was a doctor soldier, I was both shocked and angry. Here was a person that our troops trusted with their lives and he betrayed them, killing his own comrades…brothers and sisters who would give their lives for him.

I ended up staying awake all night again, transfixed by every news story and trying to get any extra piece of information. In the morning I headed to my medical conference in a slight daze fueled by adrenalin and dismay. I kept thinking that I was also on the road when a soldier killed his fellow troop’s overseas back in May and now I was on the road again during this tragedy. I had the urge to be home, safe, and with people who would understand how I felt. Even if I hadn’t had a military connection, I would have wanted to have connected with other folks who were feeling the same sense of sadness over this tragedy.

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BSF Celebrates Veterans Day with Michelle Obama and Dr. Biden | Post date: 11/12/2009 - 22:47

On Wednesday, Blue Star Families joined with Service Nation to celebrate Veterans Day, write letters for BSF's Operation Appreciation, and pack hundreds of thank you care packages for the families of deployed service members.

Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden were on hand to help launch Mission Serve, a network of 36 initiatives partnering military and civilian service organizations to support the needs of our troops, veterans and military families.

Here are the remarks of BSF founder, Kathy Roth-Douquet, explaining more about the Veterans Day event:

Two months ago today, on 9/11, I sent my husband to Afghanistan for a year. It’s the fourth combat deployment of my daughter Sophie’s eleven years. She’s seen seven schools during her daddy’s absences too – hers is the life of a military child. She - and I - are a different kind of veterans of today’s war. We’re unspeakably proud of my husband, but there’s no hiding that its hard too. The group I’m involved with – Blue Star Families, and all these groups here, are about solutions for the hard parts of military life. In Blue Star Families we believe as Service Nation does that solutions come in part from our own action, and it comes from the help of the larger community. Many of you here today have helped us with that – packing our ThxBox to the families of deployed servicemembers – these today will go to Kansas National Guard, Virginian individual augmentees, and to North Carolina regular families. The Operation Appreciation letters you all are writing today will go around the country, including to the shaken community of Fort Hood. MissionServe has shown wonderful leadership in helping groups like mine connect to those who care in the larger community – in ways that makes us all activists, all agents in our own solutions. Its terribly fitting that we celebrate those partnerships today, on Veterans Day, a day that recognizes Americans – veterans – who serve so selflessly. Here’s just a smattering of the partnerships engendered by the leadership of Be The Change:

Blue Star Families is partnering with PBS to create reintegration toolkits for families, ones we packed in the ThxBoxes today, and to connecting Greater DC Cares to the National Guard community around the Capitol region. Student Veterans of America are joining with Big Brothers Big Sisters to mentor youth. American Legion Auxiliary is engaging with Operation Homefront’s adopt a military family for the holidays programs. Sierra Club is partnering both with the National Military Family Association’s Operation Purple® to offer a free week of summer camp fun for military kids with parents who have been, are currently, or will be deployed, and with Armed Services YMCA to provide post-deployment family reintegration camping trips. MCEC and America’s Promise Alliance are working with military-connected schools to ensure their kids are adequately represented in the Gallup Student Poll, a nationwide survey of 5th through 12th graders measuring hope, engagement, and well-being.

Thank you all for being here today, for caring, and serving.

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Why I won't tell my kids about the Ft. Hood shootings | Post date: 11/12/2009 - 03:00

by Alison Buckholtz

With a husband on the ground in Iraq, I’m all too aware of the way the news media, over the six years since the U.S. military shocked and awed Iraq, transmits the idea that Americans on U.S. installations there are as safe as they would be at any base on the home front. But that formerly comforting thought feels sinister today, after an Army psychiatrist at Ft. Hood killed 13 and wounded more than 30 people in a deployment readiness center. (A day with a death toll that high would be considered an unusually tragic day in Iraq or Afghanistan.) I’m very familiar with these centers, though not the one at Ft. Hood; my husband Scott, a Navy pilot, has spent many hours in their lines, thick medical file in one hand and Kindle in the other, waiting for shots to be given, teeth to be examined, boxes to be checked.

This is usually one of the last stages before his actual deployment, and at home, we’re often caught in the eye of an emotional tornado. There’s a moment of calm for us in the midst of the panic over his leaving. On my part, I’ve passed through the phases of resisting, ranting, and sobbing—the advance grieving—and I’m exhausted, ready for him to depart so that we can start the countdown to his homecoming. At that point, I’m a butterfly pinned to a mat, unable to beat my wings anymore. Complete surrender. I watch him gather his medical records and walk out the door, knowing that he’s almost gone for good.

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Military Spouses Push Residency Relief Act through Congress | Post date: 11/06/2009 - 18:08

Please welcome guest blogger, and longtime activist for military families, Karen Francis.

A few years ago, two military spouses, Rebecca Poynter and Joanna Williamson - entrepreneurs and businesswomen - decided that they had just had ENOUGH of the tax differences, the standing in line to change their drivers licenses, voting in a strange place or not voting at all, not having their personal property with joint title because of tax issues, and the myriad of other consequences of having to change their state of residency every time they PCSed with their military spouses.

They went to Congressman John Carter (R-Tex) who represents a very large place in Texas - Fort Hood. He was very surprised to realize that the SCRA covered those in uniform, but not their spouses. This was the common reaction from all of the Senators and Congresspeople that were contacted by the large group of spouses who made call after call, emailed, snail mailed, door knocked and contacted the Military Aides of every legislator who would accept calls. During the first cycle, it didn't pass through all the committees in time. But this time, it worked. Now, in the Month of the Military Family, so proclaimed by the President - military spouses got a present.

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The Adventures of Sergeant: Chapter 1 | Post date: 11/02/2009 - 07:20

BSF co-founder Laura Dempsey recently sent me something that I've been dying to share. Her husband has been stationed in Afghanistan, leaving Laura behind to care for their little ones. This is a scenario many military families know very well. One of the challenges is staying connected to a family member far, far away. This is particularly hard for children who are old enough to understand that Mommy or Daddy is gone, but too young to really understand why.

To stay close to his dad, Laura's oldest child, Jack, sent his daddy a lego truck like the ones they had made together so many times at home. In response, Laura's husband created an ongoing story for their son, revolving around the lego truck and figurine Jack had sent him. The Adventures of Sergeant were born.

Now that Col. Dempsey's tour in Afghanistan is nearing an end, Laura agreed to let us share The Adventures of Sergeant, and that special bond between father and son. I've tried to modify the original as little as possible and we'll be sharing these throughout the next few weeks. Enjoy!

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Weekly News Round-Up for October 27, 2009 | Post date: 10/27/2009 - 21:55

Weekly News Round-Up

All the Latest in Everything Blue Star Families

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

HEADLINES - Welcome to our newest Board Member Connie Milstein! iParticipate is out with a new Public Service Announcement featuring Matthew McConaughey thanking military families for their service. Check out all the Freebies and Discounts for military families below!

Remember, if you want BSF info and links to articles and events more than once a week, join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check out our Blue Star Families Blog.

If you received our Weekly News Round-Up from a friend or co-worker, please join us today. Blue Star Families is an exciting new way for military family members from all ranks and services (and our supporters!) to Connect, Support, and Empower one another. Just go to the JOIN US page on our site BlueStarFam.org.

There's a lot of excitement about Blue Star Families and the best way to make sure you are in the middle of it all is to join your local chapter. Just shoot Vivian a note at members@bluestarfam.org, and she'll get you connected.

Enjoy! Heidi & the Blue Star Families Team

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Love in Condition Yellow: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage | Post date: 10/15/2009 - 03:00

Dessert! The payback so many military spouses wait eagerly wait for, when it will be our turn, right? At first I regarded the end of my husband Barrett’s recent OIF deployment as my chocolate cream pie. In fact I said goodbye to him imagining that when he returned, he would pay me back by morphing into an idealized family man that I’ve always carried around in my head, while I’d turn into the next Pam Houston, an award-winning writer know for her love of tough men and adventure. But deep down, I knew that expectation set us up for a fall.

In order to survive the fifteen months he was away, I had to find a way to have a full life without him. Otherwise I would have died from resentment. And I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to follow one of my dreams. So while he was deployed, I got a great babysitter, and sat down and wrote the crazy, hard, wonderful story of making peace with my warrior husband: Love in Condition Yellow.

And through writing the book, and surviving the deployment, it hit me that our having my fantasy of a stress-free, art-filled life was never meant to be. Ultimately, that which frightened me the most—my husband’s leaving our family for deployment — made me appreciate our unique relationship more. It taught me that our love stems not from Barrett’s being at my side to “complete” some fantasy in my head, but rather, in my loving him while also pursuing my own best and fullest self.

Oddly, he has become more of a family man. The time away did change him, but I don’t think it would have happened if I’d spent the whole deployment tapping my watch. Dear dessert-lovers, did you think Barrett’s coming off active duty means we now have the weekend beach and ski outings that I’ve always craved? Nope, now that he is home and back on Reserve status, he works every weekend at the police department! And did I think I would breathe a sigh of relief because he was out of harm’s way? Well, having four Oakland officers killed this past March washed that possibility away.

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Weekly News Round-Up for October 13, 2009 | Post date: 10/14/2009 - 05:00

Weekly News Round-Up Oct. 13

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Welcome to our new Advisory Board members Deborah Mullen and Babette Maxwell! Deborah Mullen is the wife of Adm. Michael Mullen who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Babette Maxwell is one of the founders and the Executive Editor of Military Spouse magazine.

Remember, if you want BSF info and links to articles and events more than once a week, join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check out our Blue Star Families Blog.

If you received our Weekly News Round-Up from a friend or co-worker, please join us today. Blue Star Families is an exciting new way for military family members from all ranks and services (and our supporters!) to Connect, Support, and Empower one another. Just go to the JOIN US page on our site BlueStarFam.org.

There's a lot of excitement about Blue Star Families and the best way to make sure you are in the middle of it all is to join your local chapter. Just shoot Vivian a note at members@bluestarfam.org, and she'll get you connected.

Enjoy! Heidi & the Blue Star Families Team

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