9/11

I wasn't going to make a post today. The events that happened 7 years ago are still fresh in my mind. As are the events that happened as a result of that day. I remember my friend Terri calling me that morning and telling me to turn on the t.v. I remember watching the second plane hit as I was getting ready to walk my kids to school. My neighbors coming outside of their homes as we walked by to express their sadness and disbelief at what was happening. Walking home and watching the towers fall, knowing that many, many people had been killed.

Two and a half years later I remember stopping at a gas station to fill up when my phone rang and it was my husband telling me that the alert had been given and they would be leaving in 3 months for training so they could be sent to Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom III, that is what it was called. My kids were 18 months, almost 7 and 9. They were 3, 8 and 10 when he returned. Parties were given, tears were shed and then they were gone.

He left for Iraq on Carter's 2nd birthday and arrived there on mine. The thing about deployments is that you don't get to know when these things happen until after. I got a call saying we wouldn't hear from him for a few days and a call saying he was in Kuwait. The same went with the convoy into Iraq and with any missions he went on. An IM saying he loved us and would be in contact in a few days. I finally figured out what that meant. It also meant that I spent days worrying when I didn't hear from him. I remember the phone call when the sirens went off warning of an attack and he hung up with an "I've got to go" and me praying that he would call back and be okay and then not sleeping until he did.

We spent 18 months apart. Ten months straight at one point between leave. It was an experience that I would love to forget, but also an experience of a lifetime. Four years later it almost fells like it never happened, but on days like today, I remember everything clearly. The day he left, the day he came home on leave, the day he came home, and the days that he missed events here at home.

So, today I remember those that died on 9/11, those that died while deployed with my husband (as well as all those others who have died), and I remember that I love my country and all those who serve to protect it.

I'm just going to post a few pictures that I look at from time to time when I am thinking about this day.

Look at how small they all were when he left.

 

An how big they were when he came home.

This is were he lived. The inside and outside. He shared it with his buddy Eric.

Where he worked. They put a big concrete mortar in front of the tent because the group before his had a mortar roll through the door when they got attacked one day. Good thing that it was a dud. They worked in a tent under a cement arch.

This actually shows the arch it's under.

And the inside.

Eric, Fred and Chris in Iraq. Back home the wives all kept eachother company. There were four of us that kept eachother going during this time. Christy, Diane, Tracey and I. We all still get together now and again. Not to relive the past, just to re-establish the contact.

And this is the photo I look at when I need to remind myself that it wasn't a vacation that he was on. When I need to remember that even though I was raising three kids alone during that 18 months, he was fulfilling a duty that he had made to his country before he knew me and before he had a family of his own. Love you tons hon, and here's hoping that we miss out on the next one.