The Long Way Home

by Scott, Jessica

  I asked who they thought gave them freedom. And of course they said soldiers right away but then I started trying to explain that the police and the firemen and the doctors and nurses were all part of our way of life that gave us freedom. I said who else would give us freedom. Jesus. No, really, two little kids said Jesus. It was so funny and cute. After I was done laughing, I told them that teachers were some of the most important people for our freedom. They looked at their teachers in a little bit of amazement. I told them it was important to be educated, otherwise people could tell them anything at all and they wouldn’t know the difference. And then they insisted that dessert was the most important part of freedom. Again.

  Then a little girl asked if I was a Mommy. And I said yes, and I pointed out my kiddo. She said, “Well, do you work?” I said, “Yes, I’m a soldier.” She said, “Mommies don’t work.” I paused for a second and said, “Well, some mommies don’t get paid for work but all mommies work. Some work in the home and some work outside of it, like me.” And then came the rousing debate about whose mommy worked and whose didn’t.

  Entertaining four year olds really isn’t my strong point.

  I guess my point in all of this is that 9/11 was a day that something really bad happened to our nation. We were attacked. Great symbols were destroyed and many people who were not warriors or combatants lost their lives. Little kids understand to varying degrees that something bad happened but they don’t understand the why. Hell, most adults still don’t understand the why. We can sum up what happened that day into pat phrases like “They hate us for our freedom,” but that’s a convenient lie, something we tell our children.

  The reality of 9/11 is that it is much more complex. I would like to say that 9/11 changed all of us. It changed our military, that’s for certain. But did it make us better citizens? Did it make us slow down and appreciate the fact that we are lucky enough to have been born in a nation that has rule of law, where an immigrant’s son can grow up to be president, where girls can go to school without fear of acid being thrown in their faces?

  Our nation is not perfect, not by a long shot. We are deeply flawed. But at the end of it all, our nation is still the best place on earth to live and that is what we must teach our children about 9/11. Not that there are bad people out there who want to hurt us. Not that there are people out there who don’t want to live like us. Let’s keep it simple for the time being and break it down to a four year old level.

  Something bad happened. We, as a nation, were wounded. But we got back up, dusted ourselves off, and started rebuilding. Take a moment to remember those who gave their lives on 9/11 and on every day since. Take a moment tomorrow and think of the good things in your life that aren’t about toys and games and stuff, but about the people who make your life richer. And if your husband or your wife is home with you, kiss them and remember why you love them. Because there are thousands of husbands and wives and sons and daughters who don’t get to kiss their loved one because of 9/11.

  Remember.

  It’s Official: DADT is Over

  September 19, 2011

  I’M A POLICY WONK. Most of the time, I keep things toned down here on the blog but those of you that know me understand that I really can’t put everything I rant about in real life on the blog. But tomorrow is a big day for the military and the Army that I love so, of course, I’ll write about it. Tomorrow, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is officially over. For almost two decades, gay men and women have been allowed to serve but in doing so, have had to hide who they are. Tomorrow, all that changes.

  Now before you get all high and mighty and start quoting Scripture to me, check it out. If you believe that God is all powerful and all knowing, then you must accept that God created men and women to be who they are. He must have known when each person was born, who was gay, who was straight, or whatever. At the end of the day, DADT is not about religion, though there are many, many out there who will say that it is.

  Also, don’t tell me that the combat arms guys out there are going to have kittens and start lynching the gays. Will there be incidents? Yes. I’m not naïve enough to think that the guy who hated someone yesterday isn’t going to latch on to the new revelations that the dude is gay to boot. But by and large, I’m willing to bet that for the most part, tomorrow will come and go and the Army will go rolling along.

  Now, let’s discuss domestic life. Housing policy remains unchanged. So does marriage, ergo benefits remain unchanged. All the DADT repeal means is that gay men and women will be allowed to finally be who they are and not worry about ending the career that they have chosen because they love someone who has the same plumbing they do.

  And quite honestly, I don’t think that gay relationships are going to cause anywhere near the drama that straight relationships have caused. I’ve been in command for almost a year now and the heterosexual trashy drama I’ve seen and heard about and dealt with would put Jerry Springer to shame. So what’s a little gay relationship drama? It’s just another day in command, as far as I’m concerned.

  Look, the Army has integrated before. Folks went up in arms when Eisenhower desegregated the Army. And lord have mercy you’d have thought the Army was going to explode when the WACs and WAVES were brought into the full military service. This is just another change. And for people who say that the Army is built on tradition and values and think that gays can’t serve honorably, I’d say you don’t know the Army I serve in.

  I told my company during my briefing that I didn’t care if you were black, white, purple, gay, or straight. At the end of it all, we’re all wearing digital grey (it used to be Army green, but hey, that change thing? Yeah). Nothing will have changed tomorrow. The person who stood next to you yesterday in formation will still be that person. Yes, there will be problems but nothing we’re not used to seeing in the ranks.

  And ultimately, if you are going to quote Scripture to me, why not use this one: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”

  Pretty sure it’s the Golden Rule for a reason.

  Was It Worth It?

  September 26, 2011

  I’M SITTING HERE TONIGHT in a crappy hotel room in Sierra Vista, Arizona. I’m away from my kids. I’m alone but for the bright white screen of my computer and I’m thinking. It’s never a good sign when I start getting introspective but sitting here tonight, I am, so here goes.

  See, the last time I was out here in sunny Arizona, I’d left my kids with my mom, kissed them goodbye and said I’ll see you in a week. And they were relatively okay. Granted, Daddy had just deployed and then Mommy took off right afterwards, but they were cool because Grammy had come to see them.

  The week came and went without incident. Until it didn’t. I was waiting in DFW airport when the voicemail came through. My youngest had fallen and hit her head. She’d fallen off the bunk beds and she was throwing up so my mom decided to take her into the emergency room. The short version is that I landed in Killeen with enough time to go straight to the hospital and get on the Life Flight. My little girl was evac’d from Fort Hood down to Dell Children’s Hospital where she spent the next four days in intensive care, ordering bacon and cookies and watching How to Train Your Dragon. Me, on the other hand? I sat there and cried and worried and tried not to scare my husband with Red Cross messages that said Call Home NOW.

  As I was sitting there, worrying about whether or not my daughter had torn the lining on her brain, worrying about whether she would need surgery, about whether this vibrant four year old who says the damnedest things was going to be okay, I went back to the same thought. I wasn’t there. For the second time in her life, my little girl had gone to the ER and I wasn’t there.

  Luckily, she was fine. She pulled through like a champ and she’s right back to terrifying all of us because the little bugger has no fear. And as she healed, I put away my worry and my guilt and I went on being a company commander. We worked hard this summer. When I say I literally didn’t see my kids, there were whole weeks where I saw them
for five minutes at bedtime.

  But before you feel bad for me, remember, I made my choice. No one made me interview for command. No one held a gun to my head and said take the guidon. I wanted this job for the sole purpose that I wanted to make a difference. Not for the report card. Not to check the command block on career progression. I wanted to make a difference. Hopefully, that difference would be a positive one. Just like every soldier in uniform, I volunteered. I had a choice and I chose this job.

  All that said, I’m sitting here tonight in Arizona and I can’t shake the heavy weight deep in my belly. I know my daughter will be fine. But what if something else happens? What happens at the end of the day is that you don’t get another tomorrow. I’ve been so busy this summer, I barely saw my house. I barely saw my kids. I planned an entire day’s schedule last week around one task: I would not fail in bringing cupcakes to school for my daughter’s birthday. I promised her last week that I would be home on time and I broke that promise to her. Blew it right out of the water. That’s what I get for promising. All I could do was apologize to her and tell her Mommy was sorry she wasn’t home. She smiled and said, “Were your lieutenants acting up again?” She made me laugh at least.

  But I don’t get to fix that broken promise. I hope I have plenty of tomorrows left to try and make it up to her. But what if I don’t? Will I honestly look back at the summer of 2011 and say I wish I’d worked harder? Or will I regret that I wasn’t at the pool on the weekend with my kids because command had taken every single thing that I’d had that week and I just needed to lie on the couch?

  A few weeks ago, one of my young sergeants asked me how I did it? How did I come to work and put in so many hours and not feel the guilt tearing me up that I wasn’t at home at night, putting my kids to bed? I looked at her honestly and said that I don’t. There is no balance. My babysitter is with my kids. There is no way to do it all. It’s not possible. But when she goes downrange, she has to find a way to put aside the pain and the guilt and the regret and focus on doing her job. Because the guilt and the regret will eat you alive if you let it. And at the end of the day, if she decides she can’t be a mom and a soldier, then that’s okay. Because she served and served well. She’s one of the best and brightest I’ve got and the Army needs young leaders like her to help shape the future of our great force. But so does her tiny man.

  But you know, as I come to the end of my time as a commander, as I looked that young sergeant in the eye, the truth came home to roost once more. There are no truer words than these words of the Army Song: “And the Army goes rolling along.”

  Because it will. So my fellow brothers and sisters in leadership roles, have some compassion when you have a young soldier look at you and say “I just need time to take care of my kids.” Don’t judge them and call them a pussy because they choose their family over the Army. If you want to keep good people in the Army, figure out a way to help them achieve that ever-elusive thing we call balance.

  As for me? I’m still a commander. I have a duty to do my job to the best of my ability. My soldiers deserve nothing less. But so do my kids. So I’ve got some more work to do myself on that elusive thing called balance.

  Performance Anxiety

  October 16, 2011

  NO, THIS ISN’T A blog post about dick jokes. It’s actually something I’ve been thinking about for a while but haven’t made time to really dig into.

  I’ve been talking a lot about taking the GRE lately on Twitter and it’s my definition of personal hell. I’ve always sucked at math. My guidance counselor in high school laughed at me when I told him my dream was to go to the Air Force Academy (thank you Iron Eagle and Top Gun) because to do that, I needed to be in advanced algebra. Of course, I didn’t let him tell me no and subsequently spent the next four years in high school being that kid who always asked the same question over and over and over again until it clicked.

  It never really did.

  Fast-forward sixteen plus years and I’ve literally done everything I can to avoid math. I say this with the irony of my life being that I’m the one who does the taxes and balances the checkbook every month, but I digress. I’m not a math fan. I wish I was. I wish I was the kind of person who could add up tips in their head and do multiplication without using a calculator. Sadly, I’m not. And all of this avoidance of math is coming back to haunt me at the moment because I’ve spent the last two weeks and will spend the next two weeks, cramming for the GRE.

  See I’ve got this wild hair across my fourth point of contact that I want to go teach at West Point and I need to get into graduate school to do this. Now, I don’t think I’m a moron but let me tell you, that first GRE practice test I took didn’t agree. When I say abysmal, it’s new definitions of the word. I can stare at a quant problem all damn day and never have a clue how to start working it.

  But today, I did something a teeny bit different. I read an article somewhere that talked about how chocolate has some of the same chemical effects on the body as marijuana. I’ve never really been a fan of weed, never mind that the Army frowns on it, so obviously, the chocolate news came as a huge boon to my excuse factory of why I needed chocolate in the house. And I’ve also discovered that a glass of wine is enough to just take the edge off. I’m not pounding an entire bottle. Just one glass.

  So today, I sat down, loaded up the practice exam and went to town. I’ve been studying vocab all week. I’ve got math flash cards. But nothing really mattered as much as not feeling that squeezing pressure on my chest as I went through the quant sections on the exam. One of the test tricks the books teach you is to skip the questions you don’t know and take the easy test first by answering the ones you did know. So I did that but this time, I didn’t feel guilty or scared or nervous. I just clicked through.

  The verbal section didn’t change much. But the quant? I raised my quant score significantly on the new scale. Which isn’t to say that I’m passing yet but I’m closer today than I was last week. And I felt better when I saw that little jump in the numbers. Was it because I’d been studying? Maybe. But I’m actually more inclined to think that without the anxiety squeezing off air to my brain, I was able not to panic a little more and was able to actually, well, think.

  So, anxiety matters. And while I’m still working on dealing with that through deep breathing, sometimes, a glass of wine will do the trick, too. Maybe a glass of wine and few pieces of Godiva made the difference.

  The world may never know.

  Change of Command

  October 20, 2011

  IT’S BEEN A year since I took the guidon. I’m sitting here now, no longer Viper 6. It feels strange because I half expect the phone to chime with one of my LTs asking me something. It was a great year. Very frustrating but also very rewarding. There will be many more blogs about my time in command, now that I’m no longer in the hot seat, but for today, I’ll just post my speech to my company. I’m proud that I didn’t cry during my speech and even got a few laughs. Mostly, I’m proud as hell of having been Viper 6. They are truly a great company and while there are many things I could have done differently, I can’t hang onto what I should have done. I can only look back on what I did do and hope that, as I said in my speech, I made a difference.

  (Names have been redacted to protect the guilty. :)

  Distinguished guests, thank you for joining us here today. I promised a few of you that this would be a quick speech and it will be, because honestly, who’s really listening? This is just about the only thing between you and free chow, right? So, hopefully without embarrassing myself, here goes.

  Ma’am, it was just a year ago that I stood here thanking you for the opportunity to command. I promised I would not let you down and while I know I frustrated the hell out of you, I hope I never disappointed you. I have to thank my daughters most of all because they didn’t realize it but they let you borrow me for this tour. To my babysitter, you have been a blessing in my life and in my daughter’s lives. You have been more than a babysitter,
you have become a friend. I joked that the cats raised my kids this year, but in reality, you were all that stood between my children and Lord of the Flies. Thank you for giving my girls a summer they’ll not soon forget. I’d thank my husband but he’s in Iraq right now so I’ll thank him properly when he gets home.

  First Sergeant, when you accepted the guidon last year from me, neither one of us knew that you’d accepted it for good but I am so grateful it was. I’ve said it before, but I think it’s true: you’ve taken more butt-chewings for me than probably any First Sergeant in the history of the Signal Corps and still, you always had my back. Thank you for always giving me honest counsel, for making me play well with others when I didn’t want to, for not letting my good idea fairies get out of control and mostly, for taking care of our soldiers. You are among the best the NCO Corps has to offer and I am honored to have served with you.

  I can’t name every soldier who impacted my life this year but I’d be remiss without mentioning a few. My supply team: you processed more AARs, turned in more equipment, and read off more serial numbers than anyone in recent history. Thank you for never quitting, for always accomplishing the mission.

  All the troopers in the company operations: thank you for not calling the IG on me when I started cussing and thanks for taping up the Viper Cuss Pot when I broke it. I think we can retire it now. I don’t think the new commander swears like I do. But I’m working on that. I’ve quit cussing. Again. No really.

  My motor sergeant and everyone in the motorpool: last year at this time, we were in dire straits on our maintenance but since you came on board, you managed to turn the course and get us going in the right direction. Your ability to find damn near any part on post—and do it legally—continues to impress me. Thank you for working long hours and late nights and never giving up.