The Silent Ranks

I wear no uniforms, no blues or army greens.
But I am in the Military in the ranks rarely seen.
I have no rank upon my shoulders. Salutes I do not give.
But the Military world is the place where I live.

I'm not in the chain of command, orders I do not get.
But my husband is the one who does, this I cannot forget.
I'm not the one who fires the weapon, who puts my life on the line.
But my job is just as tough. I'm the one that's left behind.

My husband is a patriot, a brave and prideful man
And the call to serve his country, not all can understand.
Behind the lines I see the things needed to keep this country free.
My husband makes the sacrifice, but so do our kids and me.

I love the man I married. The Navy is his life.
But I stand among the silent ranks known as the Military Wife.
~Author Unknown

I just want to dedicate this to all the wonderful women I've come to know throughout the Military, who've stood behind and beside their husbands though heartache, separation, good times and bad. It takes strength, fortitude, an amazing amount of patience and grace to do what you do. Together we help each other get through the tough times, and we rejoice together when our men come home. We know the struggles, we laugh at the mishaps (after-the-fact, of course), we give each other advice and a shoulder to lean on. We all know what it's like to have everything fall apart the day our guys leave. Heck, the first time my husband left, my toilet overflowed, a headlight on my car burnt out (and I was stopped by the cops because of it), and a huge spider made it's appearance in our apartment. It never fails - ask any wife. As soon as our guys are on their way, the house falls apart, the kids get sick (every time my husband went out on deployment, my kids came down with something horrible the day before), the car breaks down...

But we live with it, because we have to. We deal with it, because it's our job, our duty. We love our husbands, we support them, we do what we can to make them successful and able to focus on the job they have to do. It's hard and lonesome, but the reunions are more joyful than you can describe. There's nothing like the feeling of seeing your man walking towards you for the first time in so many months. That first kiss... seeing your kids jump into his arms... and knowing that once again, he's made it safely back to you.

So this is to you, the Military Wife. Cheers!

Sketchy

Sketchy
Originally uploaded by FlyButtafly

This was done at one of those "photobooths" at Chuck E. Cheese's. It's my hubby and me. (He's so hawt.)

I just had to share this old Chuck E. Cheese training video which Todd so kindly directed me to. Kinda scary, but interesting nonetheless. I have to imagine the approach is a little different nowadays.

Gone all Friends & Family

Yep, I've decided to completely turn all photos of my kids on flickr, to friends/family only. :( Unfortunately, hundreds of stolen-from-flickr photos of kids are showing up in various places 'round the net, most notably on Orkut (google's own social-networking site) and also on MySpace. I'm not as popular as some of the other people who've had photos stolen, but there's also some new to flickr who've had photos taken. The majority of my kids' photos have been f/f for a while now, mostly to protect them from viewing by less-than-savory people, but I've shared some of them with the public; not anymore. To be honest, I'd been considering it anyway. Some of them had showed up in Explore, and been extremely popular - and ended up being misused and reposted by people pulling them through the API. Even though I've had downloading turned off for non-contacts, and 3rd-party API searches turned off, direct feeds were still pulling them and occasionally I'd find them on some odd site I never heard of before. I got major crap from one person after I asked him to remove my photos and let him know he was violating many of the API's TOS, so from now on, I just share with those I trust. Sad, but what else can I do?